Being mortgage free is a financial goal for many Canadian home owners. In a sense, we purchase in order to be mortgage free. That’s always the end goal, right?

Well I read a lot of news and magazine articles to keep up on personal finance, mortgage news and home maintenance etc. When it comes to the financial side of things, I love Rob Carrick at The Globe and Mail. He has a great perspective and always digs into the topics most Canadians don’t really think about.

Today I read an article from him entitled “Freedom from your mortgage? You’ll pay for that“. Peaked your interest too didn’t it? Funny enough, it’s not all what I thought it was going to be about.

I thought it would be about the costs of having an open mortgage or about the penalties for pre-paying your mortgage but no. It’s actually about the discharge fees the banks charge when you are done paying your mortgage.

“There are costs to mortgage freedom that suggest two rules for approaching your final payment. One is to have as much as a few hundred bucks available to pay your discharge fees, and another is not to get so over-amped about mortgage freedom that you pay your balance owing early. Do this and you will likely increase the costs of ending the relationship with your mortgage lender.”

He also discusses some ways to make this incremental charge back on things like home insurance. Well worth the read if you’re almost mortgage free!