How Verification of Employment (VOE) for Mortgages Works

After months (maybe years) of watching house hunters, browsing Zillow, and finally attending open houses, you have made a bid that was accepted! Now begins the paperwork and back and forth with your lender, as underwriting is an intense and involved process for everyone involved.

One step in the underwriting process is the verification of employment (VOE). The mortgage lender needs to do their due diligence and validate that you are and have been employed to ensure they’re taking into consideration all of your income sources. This confirms that the borrower can cover their down payment, any closing costs, and most importantly, the monthly repayment.

Why do lenders need to verify my employment?

While it might seem like just another box to check in the lending process, lenders are required to check your employment and income information to confirm your ability to make your monthly mortgage payment and reduce their risk for lending to you.

How does a mortgage lender verify income & employment?

Mortgage lenders usually verify employment by contacting the borrower’s employer directly and reviewing recent income documentation. These documents can include an employment verification letter, a recent pay stub, or anything else to prove an employment history and confirm income.

The employee verification process for mortgages can take anywhere from a few days to weeks if your lender is working off of PDFs and physical forms. However, if you work with a lender that requests payroll access for underwriting the process could take just a few hours.

Are you a lender looking to save time in the mortgage process? Check out how Argyle transforms the mortgage lending experience.

How can I verify my employment if I don’t have HR support?

If you are self-employed, work at a small business, work hours for a gig platform, freelance, or in any number of roles that don’t provide access to a fully built out human resources team, verifying income and employment can be much more difficult. That’s why we built Argyle Verify.

Argyle is a third-party verification service that allows anyone to securely share their income, job title, and proof of employment information with lenders, background check companies, human resources, or any other party you choose.

To learn more, visit Argyle Verify.

When do lenders verify employment in the mortgage process?

Some lenders will verify your employment multiple times during the mortgage process:

Preapproval

In a competitive housing market it can be a good idea to work with a lender before you have your dream house picked out and learn what kind of mortgage you would qualify for. When you get preapproved, you may be required to provide information or documents like bank statements and pay stubs to prove your income and the funds you're using to get the loan, along with a credit check.

Verifications during underwriting

Each lender will perform a verification of income and employment check during underwriting a mortgage according to their own timeline. Typically it is done anywhere from a few days to a few weeks before your loan is cleared to close, and might be performed again if the timeline to close was extended to confirm nothing has changed. 

It is recommended that you not make any career changes during the underwriting process or even open a credit card or finish another loan payment to avoid impacting your credit score.

Bottom line

Income and employment verification are a critical part of the home loan process, but can be a difficult one for those without access to an HR department to handle the paperwork. Even when a department exists to provide documentation to a lender, paper forms and PDFs can slow down the lending timeline.

With Argyle, you get instant, automated VOI and VOE for mortgage lending, unlimited fee-free reverifications throughout the closing cycle, and we offer a holistic view of an applicants’ creditworthiness, for a low-friction borrowing experience that eliminates manual touchpoints, reduces cycle lengths, and lowers first payment default risk for the lender, so they can be more confident in the loan application.