How to go about income proof if your income comes from Retirement and or Social Security?

In yesterday’s post, we talked about the three items that you will always need to document in regard to your income.  To recap, we always need to show the underwriter the following:

• Proof that you have a history of receiving this income
• Proof that you are currently receiving this income
• Proof of the likelihood that you will continue to receive this income

Last time, we talked about the steps to show this for a salaried employee.  Today we’re going to take a look at how to go about this if your income comes from Retirement and or Social Security.

So, first up, we need to prove that you have a history of receiving this income.  What we need to gather up here is actually very similar to the needs of a salaried employee.  Instead of needed the prior two years’ worth of W2 forms, we will need to get the last two years 1099 forms.  These are very similar to W2 forms, in that they break down your total amount of money received.  You will have received a copy of these from your retirement and the Social Security Administration at the end of each year.  If you don’t still have copies of these then you will need to reach out to your retirement provider or to the Social Security Administration and request copies.

In order to prove that you are currently receiving the income, we will need to get your prior two months’ worth of bank statements to show that the benefit amount is being deposited to your account.  This is pretty easy, because on all loan types, we have to get bank statements in order to document your current assets, so we get to kill two birds with the same stone .

Finally, in order to prove the likelihood that you will continue to receive this income, we’ll need to get a copy of your most recent yearly Award letter.  This is a document that is sent you by either your retirement provider of the Social Security Administration at the beginning of each year that spells out the amount that you can expect to receive for the upcoming year.

Overall, this process is a little bit easier than documenting income for a salaried employee, but there are still hoops that you have to jump through.  Here at the Heights, we think that the more you are prepared and educated for what you can expect, the easier it is to achieve what is needed.  So, in that spirit, in the next post we will take a look at some more complicated income types to document!