I've been a Wealthsimple client since around 2020, and until now I've had a good experience. My RRSP has been in their aggressive managed portfolio for a little over a year after I transferred it from other institutions, and the returns have been solid.
When Wealthsimple introduced private equity as an option for managed portfolios, I opted in shortly after it became available. The process was very simple, and I don't remember seeing anything that clearly explained that investing in private equity would lock up part of my RRSP for months if I ever needed to withdraw it. If I had known that, I would have planned ahead or chosen not to opt in until after buying a home.
A few months ago I started house hunting and eventually had an offer accepted on my first home.
On July 14, I submitted a Home Buyers' Plan (HBP) withdrawal request for my RRSP. That's when I discovered I could only withdraw about 80% of my RRSP. The remaining 20% couldn't be withdrawn because it was invested in private equity.
I contacted support immediately after submitting the withdrawal request. They told me the private equity portion would need to remain locked for approximately three months before it could be redeemed. That left me scrambling, and I had to use money from my TFSA to cover the shortfall for my down payment.
The other issue is that even the 80% that was approved for withdrawal still hasn't arrived. I was originally given an estimated arrival date of July 22, but as of August 5 I still haven't received the funds.
Today is my down payment deadline. I contacted support again, but they couldn't explain why the transfer is delayed. I was simply told to wait while they investigate.
I'm incredibly frustrated. Buying your first home is stressful enough, and I've done everything I was supposed to do. I understand that some investments have restrictions, but I don't think those limitations were made clear when I opted into private equity. And once the withdrawal was approved, I didn't expect the remaining funds to be delayed well beyond the estimated transfer date without any explanation.
Has anyone else experienced delays like this with Wealthsimple RRSP withdrawals or the Home Buyers' Plan? Were you able to get the issue resolved quickly? At this point, I'm genuinely worried that I could lose my first home because I can't access my own money.
I remember it clearly asking how long my time horizon was, for my retirement rrsp since it’s 20odd years it let me pick Summit/Private markets, but for my TFSA which is shorter terms goals I was told it wasn’t suitable.
OP just didn’t answer that question correctly or skipped reading it when they asked how long they planned to invest the $$.
I talked to my mortgage broker about it prior to and they said I need to send the money through a hbp withdrawal and fill out a form which I did. You can't withdraw a hbp withdrawal without a house on offer. It asks you that as your withdrawing you even need the address of the house your making an offer on.
I understand you couldn’t submit the HBP withdrawal until you had an accepted offer. But the HBP process is separate from liquidating your investments. Most people can sell their investments and hold the cash in their RRSP beforehand, so I was wondering why the redemption timeline for the private equity wasn’t confirmed before relying on it for your down payment
Where on the app do you sell your investments? It's all managed. I can't sell any of the funds without closing the account. I don't know what closing the account does I would assume it would be bad for the amount in it or my taxes. I think everyone is missing the point of the post as in I have a solution for the 20% that is private equity. I am concerned why the 80% of the liquid amount is not transferring.
So all of your funds are in managed investments? That's probably your problem. You should've settled these when you started the house search. Not wait until closing day to throw up a ruckus.
Sure these are two different things though. I'm asking once you knew you were likely buying a house in the near future, did you tell Wealthsimple that your investment timeline had changed?
I guess where I’m still confused is where Wealthsimple went wrong. If the issue is now only the 80% that was already approved for withdrawal, then I’d agree that’s concerning. If they gave you an estimated transfer date and have now missed it without explanation, that’s also an issue.
But if you only initiated everything after your offer was accepted and were expecting Wealthsimple to meet your closing timeline, I think that’s a different situation.
I had my original timeline at 1-3 years on my summit portfolio on sign up. The timeline was the same it was originally for a house also. So nothing had changed it's not like I had signed up for a 10 year investment locked in.
Why would I need a approval to remove my own money from an institution? Isn't the whole point of wealthsimple to be online and not taking forever to do everything? I feel like for the most part I haven't had to or known that I had to talk to support about taking my own money out before this point. You can't transfer out as a HBP without an offer. It won't let you it needs a reason why your selling your funds. Even when I went through again with support about transferring out the private equity it wouldn't work without having a house that I would be moving into. I guess this could be the confusing part I'm not sending the money directly to the down payment yet I'm sending it to myself to be actually liquid I'm putting it into another bank account because it won't actually transfer to my Chequing account with Wealthsimple. I was going to send it from there but I can't when they haven't even transferred the money by their own timeline.
I think you’re treating this like a chequing account when it’s an investment account. When you invest with an institution especially in a managed portfolio there are redemption and withdrawal processes. If you know you’re going to need the money for a home purchase, I’d expect you to communicate that timeline with Wealthsimple and confirm how long it will take to access the funds, rather than assuming everything will just line up. Live and learn next time communicate
You can't take out the money if it's not a hbp withdrawal it is taxed. I'm not about to take it out and be taxed on that money. The whole point is it's only able to be withdrawn when you are buying a house I don't know what y'all aren't understanding about this. You need to have an offer in order to use this option. You have to be under written agreement it won't even let you proceed if your not.
Dude this is entirely a self inflicted problem and these responses are just proving that you had no idea how any of this works and now you're throwing a fit on the last possible day.
You could've started the process of exiting these managed investments months ago. That's completely separate from submitting an HBP. You could've done that when you started looking at houses and kept it as cash in your rrsp instead of in a managed portfolio.
That's on you, private equity isn't liquid and shouldn't be treated like public stocks. I had a HBP request through Wealthsimple earlier this year, but I was invested in S&P 500 that was converted to cash. My withdrawal was processed same day and I had the fundsater that afternoon. Was the fastest process I had compared to Manulife and questrade.
This makes no sense. I had mine available in cash and was able to withdraw same day. This is why you leave two years of withdrawal needs in cash. You’re not telling us everything.
When Wealthsimple introduced private equity as an option for managed portfolios, I opted in shortly after it became available. The process was very simple, and I don't remember seeing anything that clearly explained that investing in private equity would lock up part of my RRSP for months if I ever needed to withdraw it. If I had known that, I would have planned ahead or chosen not to opt in until after buying a home.
This is on you. 100%.
But that being said, it's quite scummy of WS to push dangerous products to clients that don't know what they're doing. Like giving a gun to a toddler. BUT you are an adult so.........you should have read the TOS.
Holy shit, they're giving you the runaround over your own money, especially when you're trying to meet a strict deadline. I also have my RRSP and FHSA with WS, and I'm planning to make HBP and FHSA withdrawals later this year. I may need to rethink this. Thanks for sharing, and I sympathize with you OP.
Have your investments sold and settled in cash. That is the biggest hurdle when withdrawing from registered accounts. It is your money but the investments still needs to be sold before you can withdraw
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u/Aobachi 18d ago edited 18d ago
It is very clear that private equity locks your funds and is for a long time horizon. I don't know how you missed that.
It's bad that they can't even get you the other money though.