Before You Send Anyone Your Documents: How to Check a Mortgage Broker's Licence

You search "mortgage broker near me", three names come back, and all three have good reviews. Within a day or two you will be sending one of them your SIN, two years of tax returns, and ninety days of bank statements.

Reviews do not tell you whether that person is allowed to do the job. Knowing how to check a mortgage broker's licence takes about two minutes, it is free, and it is the one piece of homework almost nobody does.

Here is how to do it in Alberta, what a licensed brokerage owes you in writing, and why a real broker asks for so much identification.

Start With the Licence, Not the Reviews

Anyone in Alberta who arranges a mortgage for someone else has to be licensed by the Real Estate Council of Alberta, or RECA. That is the provincial regulator for real estate, mortgage brokerage, property management and condo management. The licence is not a membership badge or an award. It is the legal permission to do the work.

Reviews measure how a person made someone feel. They do not tell you whether the licence is current, whether it has conditions on it, or whether the regulator has disciplined that person. Those are different questions, and only one of them has an official answer.

So check the licence first. If it comes back clean, then read the reviews, and then read up on what a mortgage broker actually does on your file.

How to Check a Mortgage Broker's Licence in Alberta

RECA runs a free public search called ProCheck. You do not need an account and you do not need to tell anyone you are looking.

Go to RECA ProCheck and search either the person's name or the brokerage name. What comes back tells you three things:

• Whether they are legally authorized to work in Alberta. This is the whole point. If a name does not come up, that is your answer.
• What licence they hold. Real estate, mortgage, property management and condo management are separate licences. Someone licensed to sell houses is not licensed to arrange your mortgage.
• Disciplinary decisions issued in the last five years. If the regulator has taken action against them recently, it shows here.

Two practical notes. Search the legal name, not the nickname on the business card, because that is how the licence is registered. And search the brokerage too, not just the person, since both have to be licensed.

RECA says its own records can lag a little behind the most recent activity, so treat a clean result as a strong signal rather than a guarantee. If something looks off, call RECA and ask.

Mortgage Associate, Mortgage Broker, Brokerage: What the Titles Mean

The titles get used loosely in advertising, so here is what they actually mean in Alberta.

There are two individual licence classes. A mortgage associate is the licence someone holds when they start out. To get it they have to be at least eighteen, finish the required courses, pass a criminal record check, and be hired by a licensed brokerage. A mortgage broker is the more senior class, and it generally requires at least two years of licensed experience within the last five before you can apply for it.

Both classes are licensed. Both can handle your file. The difference is time in the industry and the level of responsibility inside the firm, not whether the person is allowed to help you.

The brokerage is the licensed business itself. Every associate and every broker has to work under one, and the brokerage carries the compliance obligations. That is why our own material says Gold Lion Mortgages is powered by MCC Elevo Mortgages, Member of DLCG. Gold Lion is the business you deal with. MCC Elevo is the licensed brokerage behind the file.

One more thing worth knowing: a brokerage can employ unlicensed assistants for admin work, but under RECA's rules an unlicensed assistant must not deal in mortgages. They can book your appointment and chase a missing pay stub. They should not be the one advising you on your options.

What a Licensed Brokerage Owes You in Writing

This is the part most people have never been told, and it is the fastest way to tell a professional operation from a sloppy one.

Under Alberta's harmonized rules, a brokerage has to give you a written service agreement before it starts providing services. Not after the offer is accepted. Not the week of closing. Before.

The rules also require that a licensee disclose who they represent in the transaction, and disclose all the remuneration they receive and who pays it. On top of that, a conflict of interest has to be disclosed at the earliest practical opportunity, not buried later.

So you are entitled, in writing and up front, to the answer to the question everyone is too polite to ask: who is paying you, and how much.

On most residential A-lender files in Canada the lender pays the brokerage a finder's fee and the borrower pays nothing for the brokerage's service. On harder files — alternative lenders, private lenders, some commercial deals — there can be a brokerage fee. Either way, it belongs in writing before you commit, and you should read that paragraph rather than skim it. It is also one of the real differences between going to a single bank and using a broker, since a bank branch is only ever showing you its own shelf.

If someone will not put the fee answer in writing, you already have the information you needed.

Why a Real Broker Asks for So Much Identification

People often get suspicious at this step, and the suspicion is reasonable. It also has a boring explanation.

Since October 11, 2024, mortgage brokers, mortgage lenders and mortgage administrators in Canada have been reporting entities under the federal anti-money-laundering law. That means we are required to run a compliance program, verify who you are, keep records, and report certain transactions to FINTRAC, the federal financial intelligence agency. It is not optional and it is not us being nosy.

The rule that surprises most clients is that a photocopy of your driver's licence on its own is no longer enough. There are a handful of accepted ways to confirm you are who you say you are, and a broker has to use one of them:

• Checking your government-issued photo ID in person
• Using your Canadian credit file, if it is established enough to qualify
• The dual-process method, which uses two documents from two different reliable sources
• Approved identity-verification technology that authenticates the document itself
• Relying on another reporting entity that has already verified you, under a written agreement

Same reason your down payment gets traced. Lenders and insurers generally want to see roughly ninety days of history for the money, which is why our post on documenting a gifted down payment spends so much time on paper trails.

Here is the flip side, and it is the useful part. Knowing what a legitimate request looks like tells you what an illegitimate one looks like. Your mortgage broker does not need your online banking password. Your down payment does not get sent to your broker — the deposit on an offer goes to the real estate brokerage's trust account, and the balance goes to your lawyer. If anyone asks you to wire money to them personally, stop and call RECA.

The Questions Worth Asking Once the Licence Checks Out

The licence tells you someone is allowed to do the work. It does not tell you whether they are the right fit. These five questions get at that, and they are different from the usual list about rates.

1. Who will actually be working on my file? Ask for the name and the licence class of the person giving you advice, then look that person up too. A team is fine. Not knowing who is on your file is not.

2. What happens if the banks say no? This is the real test. A broker who only has bank relationships will thank you for your time. There are three broad lanes:

• A-lenders — the big banks, credit unions and monolines. They generally want full income documents and debt-service ratios around 39 and 44, plus the stress test.
• B-lenders — they look at the whole file, can go below a 600 credit score depending on everything else, can stretch ratios toward roughly 50 and 50, and usually want about 20 per cent down plus a lender fee.
• Private lenders — equity-focused, generally 20 to 25 per cent down or more, with a written plan for getting you back to a mainstream lender.

Ask which of those they can actually place, and ask what the second option looks like before you need it. Our guide to alternative and private lenders in Calgary goes through the trade-offs, and our bruised-credit mortgage page covers the files a branch usually turns away.

3. How will I be sending you my documents? You are about to hand over enough information to open a bank account in your name. A secure upload portal is normal. Texting a photo of your T4 to a personal cell number is not great practice.

4. When will I see the written service agreement, and what does it say about fees? You now know they have to give you one. Asking when tells you whether they run the file properly.

5. If something goes wrong, who do I go to? The right answer is the broker of record at the brokerage first, and RECA after that. A licensee who cannot name their own broker of record is a flag.

If a broker is any good, none of these questions will bother them. We would rather you asked.

Checking a Mortgage Broker's Licence Outside Alberta

Mortgage brokering is regulated province by province, so the regulator changes when you cross a border. RECA covers Alberta. In Ontario it is the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario, FSRA. In British Columbia it is the BC Financial Services Authority, BCFSA. Each province has its own public register, and the steps are much the same: search the person, search the firm, check the status and any conditions.

Two things to keep straight. A broker licensed in Alberta cannot arrange a mortgage on a property in another province unless they are licensed there too, or the file is placed through someone who is. And the federal anti-money-laundering rules are national, so the identification step looks the same everywhere even though the licensing does not.

How Gold Lion Mortgages Can Help

Surinderpal Singh has been arranging mortgages since 2023, through the licensed brokerage MCC Elevo Mortgages, Member of DLCG. Look us up on ProCheck before you call. We would genuinely rather you did.

What we do after that is straightforward. We look at your income, your credit and your down payment, tell you honestly which lane your file belongs in, and shop it across banks, credit unions, monolines, alternative lenders and private lenders. If a bank is the right answer for you, we will say so. If your file needs a different lane this year and a mainstream lender in two, we will tell you that too, and what it takes to get there. Plenty of the files we work on are ones a single branch could not place. That is the work we know best.

You will get the written service agreement before we start, the fee answer up front, and a real explanation of what the lender is looking at rather than a yes or a no.

Call (587) 740-0048 or visit goldlionmortgages.com/apply.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I check if a mortgage broker is licensed in Alberta?

Use RECA ProCheck, the free public search run by the Real Estate Council of Alberta. Search the person's legal name or the brokerage name. It shows whether they are authorized to work in Alberta, which licence they hold, and any disciplinary decisions issued in the last five years.

What is the difference between a mortgage associate and a mortgage broker in Alberta?

They are two classes of the same licence. A mortgage associate is the entry class and has to be employed by a licensed brokerage. A mortgage broker is the more senior class and generally requires at least two years of licensed experience within the previous five. Both are licensed and both can handle your file.

Does a mortgage broker have to tell me how they get paid?

Yes. Alberta's rules require a licensee to disclose who they represent and all the remuneration they receive and from whom, and to give you a written service agreement before providing services. On most residential A-lender files the lender pays the brokerage and the borrower pays nothing for the service, but on alternative and private files there can be a brokerage fee. Get the answer in writing before you commit.

Why does my mortgage broker need so much identification?

Since October 11, 2024, mortgage brokers, lenders and administrators have been reporting entities under Canada's anti-money-laundering law. They are required to verify your identity, keep records and report certain transactions to FINTRAC. A photocopy of your ID on its own is no longer an accepted method, which is why you may be asked for a second document or an electronic ID check.

Can an Alberta mortgage broker arrange a mortgage in another province?

Not on the Alberta licence alone. Mortgage brokering is regulated provincially, so a broker generally needs to be licensed in the province where the property is, or place the file through someone who is. The federal identification rules are the same across the country.

Published: September 10, 2026. Licensing rules, lender programs and qualifying requirements change. Contact Gold Lion Mortgages to confirm what applies to your file.

Powered by MCC Elevo Mortgages, Member of DLCG.