Faster than a bank. Easier than a bank.

A home equity line of credit is revolving credit secured against your home. Instead of receiving one lump sum, you are approved for a limit and draw from it whenever you want. You pay interest only on the amount you have actually taken out, from the day you take it out, not on the whole limit.

Pay some of it back and that room becomes available again, the way a credit card works, except the interest rate is far lower because your home is the security.

The Lendmax Flexline is our home equity line of credit for Canadian homeowners. It is designed for people who have equity in their home but do not fit the bank's paperwork: self-employed income, commission income, a credit file that has had a rough year, or simply no time to wait six weeks for an answer.

The Flexline goes to 75% of your home's value, needs no income documents, and does not apply the mortgage stress test. It can sit in first position, or in second position behind a mortgage you want to keep exactly where it is.

A home equity loan, often registered as a second mortgage, is a fixed amount advanced once. You start paying interest on all of it immediately, and once you pay it down you cannot take it back out without a new application.

A HELOC is a limit you can draw against, repay and draw again. If you need $60,000 now and might need another $100,000 in eight months, a line costs you nothing on the unused portion in the meantime.

You draw what you need, and interest is charged only on the balance you are carrying. Your monthly obligation is the interest on that balance. There is no fixed amortised payment forcing principal down, so a month where you draw nothing is a month with nothing to pay.

You get online access to transfer, track and pay from anywhere, and a monthly statement showing exactly what was drawn, what was repaid and what interest was charged.

At a federally regulated bank, a revolving home equity line of credit is capped at 65% of your home's value. A HELOC combined with a mortgage at the same institution can reach 80% of the value in total, but the revolving portion still cannot exceed 65%, and the stress test applies to the whole thing.

A Lendmax Flexline goes to 75% of your home's appraised value, counting every charge already registered against the property, to a maximum limit of $1,500,000. Your actual limit comes from the valuation, your credit and where the property is.

Take what your home would sell for today and subtract everything owing against it, including your mortgage and any secured line already registered. What is left is your equity.

To estimate a Flexline limit, multiply the value by 0.75 and subtract the balances still owing. The sliders above do that arithmetic for you.

Yes. The Lendmax Flexline is registered separately and sits in second position behind your existing first mortgage. You do not move it, break it, or pay a penalty on it — which is the usual catch when a bank offers you a line of credit.

If your home is paid off, the Flexline takes first position and stands on its own.

The Flexline is underwritten primarily on the property and the equity in it, so there are no income documents to upload and the mortgage stress test is not applied. Credit is still reviewed, and it affects your rate and your limit, but a bruised file is not automatically a decline the way it often is at a branch.

The honest limit: there has to be real equity. If there is not enough room between your home's value and what is already owing, no structure fixes that.

Most bank HELOCs carry a variable rate tied to that lender's prime rate — prime plus a set amount — so the rate moves whenever prime moves. Federally regulated institutions have to notify you in writing within 30 days of a rate change.

Lendmax Flexline rates start at 6.49% in first position. Second-position pricing is set after a review of the file and is not published, for the reason in the next answer.

Because it genuinely depends on the file. A second position sits behind an existing mortgage, so the rate turns on how much is ahead of it, the combined loan-to-value, the property type and your credit. Publishing one number would be a guess, and you would be the one it was wrong for.

Submit an inquiry and your rate comes back with your offer, itemised alongside every fee, before you commit to anything and before you spend a dollar.

Interest on what you actually draw, a $2,499 setup fee, and legal fees payable to your own lawyer. Other fees may apply depending on the file.

Those fees are why your total cost of borrowing is higher than the interest rate alone. Five worked APR examples show exactly how that arithmetic lands at different amounts. Your own annual percentage rate and every fee are stated in your offer before you sign.

Generally only when the borrowed money is used to earn income from a business or from property — not when it is used for personal purposes such as renovations, a vehicle or consolidating consumer debt. The use of the funds decides it, not the fact that the loan is secured by your home.

Whether your situation qualifies, and what records the Canada Revenue Agency expects you to keep, is a question for your accountant or tax adviser. We are not tax advisers and nothing here is tax advice.

No. The first step is a soft credit check, which does not affect your score. A full check only happens later, after you have seen your offer and decided to go ahead.

At a bank, six to eight weeks is common once the appraisal, the income review and the stress test are done. A Lendmax Flexline is approved on a soft credit check and a desktop appraisal, usually the same day or within two business days, and the fastest files fund in as few as five days.

Five days is the fastest case, not a promise. Every file is subject to underwriting, valuation, title review and approval, and no credit is approved until a written commitment is issued.

Yes. We use a desktop appraisal on most files and a full appraisal where the property, the location or the amount calls for one. Either way we order it, and most come back the same day or within two business days.

The appraisal is what sets your loan-to-value, so it decides both your limit and your rate. You are told which one your file needs before anything is booked.

One, three or five years, whichever suits your plans. There is no prepayment penalty on any of them, so you can pay the balance to zero and draw it again inside your term.

At the end of the term the balance is due, and the usual paths are to renew, to pay it out with longer-term financing, or to pay it off from the proceeds of a sale. We talk about which one you are aiming at before you start, not at the end.

Whatever you need it for: catching up on bills, consolidating higher-rate consumer debt, renovations, tuition, a tax balance, bridging a gap in self-employed income, or keeping a business steady through a slow quarter. You draw what you need and leave the rest alone.

What it is not good for is treating equity as income. Your home is the security, so if you cannot keep up the payments your property may be at risk — which is why we would rather talk through the plan for paying it back before you draw.

Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. The product may vary by province due to regulatory requirements, and the Flexline may not be available on all property types or in all cities.

Where your home is affects both your limit and your rate, because how readily a property would sell is part of how it is priced.