Maggie Steiss

Review of Northwood Mortgage

Stay as far away from Karen Parrott and Northwood ...

Stay as far away from Karen Parrott and Northwood mortgage as possible. They have cost me thousands of dollars. I met Karen at a networking event and we became friendly so when I needed mortgage advice I came to her. One of the biggest mistakes of my life and I've made my share. I had a mortgage with home trust. The first years payments had been covered but I was worried about how I would make payments when the year was up. I contacted Karen and she suggested a second mortgage with Northwood and we would work on my credit rating and in a year I could go to a big bank and consolidate the mortgages at a better rate. Would have been great if it were true. Karen had me take out a mortgage for way more than I wanted, was comfortable with or could afford. She pushed me into an investment. which turned out to be a syndicated mortgage deal. When I questioned her about the risk factor she said these were big companies who did this all the time and there was no risk. That was a lie. She also said when it came time to go to the big banks they would look favorably on this investment. Another lie. I was still very reluctant a I did not want to borrow money for this or be locked in to it for several years. Karen said the private lender wanted me to do this investment. I now suspect that was a lie. I asked her about other investments if I had to do this. She said the lender wouldn't go for it. It was very obvious if I didn't agree I would not get the mortgage. I went ahead with it since I felt I had no choice. The company I invested in is now in receivership. Karen's irresponsible actions for her own greed have cost me thousands.
I wrote a letter to Steve Kates whose LinkedIn profile lists him as the owner of Northwood. I described what had happened as well as Karen's increasingly unsavory behavior. He passed it on to his complaint department. Jason Dorit responded with the results of there so-called investigation. They claimed I heard about the investment at a networking event and asked Karen to introduce me to the person in charge. This is a blatant lie. They are very much into victim blaming.
I spoke with another broker who said that pushing me into this investment was improper and grounds for a complaint to FSCO. She also looked at the fees I was paying and was horrified at how much they were, about double the industry standard. I recently reread the original mortgage agreement. Karen mentions my "partner" as planning to get work. I was seeing someone at the time but his legal home was in another city and we both made it very clear to Karen that he had nothing to do with the mortgage. I currently have a complaint into FSCO and if this goes to a hearing he will testify to the fact that he was not part of the mortgage. He may even lodge his own complaint. Karen Parrott has acted irresponsibly and cannot be trusted. She deserves to lose her licence. Her employer is Northwood and they had to know what was going on and sign off on it. Even if it was an over site there victim blaming instead of correcting the situation should result in at the very least a hefty fine but preferably cost them their licence as well. They need to be put out of business before they hurt anyone else.