Can I get a loan with unfiled tax returns?
Traditional mortgage lenders require at least one to two years of filed tax returns and W-2s to verify income, meaning unfiled returns will immediately stall your application. Additionally, any hidden tax judgments or liens found during the underwriting process must be fully settled before a lender will clear you to close.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1working with an accountant and the IRS to get caught up on filing
- 2calling credit unions and lenders directly to ask about their policy on unfiled taxes
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“How are you going to be able to give the lender a copy of your tax returns for income verification?”source ↗
“If a tax judgement has been filed you are SOL, they'll require it be settled prior to lending.”source ↗
“On potential issues is that we are a few years behind on filing taxes because of my bad brain 😭 but we are working on getting caught up.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 21How to clean up months of messy client expense records
- 4How to get a mortgage without a traditional salary or employment history
- 2Why do apartments reject self-employed income verification?
- 2Should I say anything if my landlord lowered my rent by mistake?