Scotia Total Equity Plan (STEP)-Flexible Borrowing Plan | Scotiabank Canada (2024)

STEP provides access to the equity in your home today for your goals tomorrow. You can set-up STEP when you get your mortgage for no additional fee, apply once to unlock on-going access to your home’s equity. With STEP, as your equity increases, so does your borrowing power because as you pay down your mortgage, you build equity.

STEP can be initially set up with a STEP Global Limit of up to 80% of your home’s value, including up to 65% for line of credit products. Over the next 25 years, the STEP’s Global Limit will gradually decrease to 65%, helping you gradually reduce your overall borrowing while still allowing you to access your home equity along the way.

STEP gives you the flexibility to divide your mortgage into up to 3 mortgage solutions with different terms and rates. This can be a useful strategy to manage interest rate risk. With STEP you can also have up to 3 line of credit solutions in addition to your mortgages.

Unlike a traditional mortgage, with STEP, you can take advantage of mortgage prepayment privileges without having to worry about locking up all your money in your home. As you pay down your mortgage, you can access more and more equity in your home. For example, should something unexpected occur, you can access that equity by drawing down on a ScotiaLine® Personal Line of Credit linked to the STEP or you can add another credit solution to your STEP.⁴

Note: You can apply prepayment privileges to the mortgage components you wish to pay down faster; however standard prepayment charges apply should you go over your annual prepayment limits.

Once you’ve built up equity under your STEP, there are many ways you can tap into your borrowing power.

For the ultimate convenience, you can set up the STEP Automatic Limit Increase feature. This feature automatically increases the credit limit on a selected ScotiaLine® Personal Line of Credit product as you pay down the principal of your mortgage.⁶

Or you can choose to access your available equity whenever you need it, from anywhere. This can be done from the comfort of your home through Scotia OnLine or the Scotiabank Mobile App, over the phone with our Contact Centre at 1-866-267-9806, or in person by visiting your local branch.^**

STEP will enable you to gradually reduce your overall borrowing level while still having access to your equity. After initial setup, the STEP Global Limit will decrease monthly by an equal amount over a 25-year period, until the limit is reduced to 65% of your home’s value. If your STEP Global Limit is at or below 65% at setup, it will be a fixed amount that will not reduce.

Your available equity is the difference between the STEP Global Limit and the total of your mortgage balances and ScotiaLine limits. Through a STEP refinance you can increase your STEP Global Limit, up to 80% of your home’s new appraised value; the 25-year monthly reduction of the STEP Global Limit to 65% would then restart.