BASALT · JOURNAL
PDF redaction for mortgage documents
Mortgage packets contain income, tax, bank, property, and identity data. Sharing a complete packet with a broker, advisor, or housing program can expose details unrelated to the request.
Define the required evidence
Ask whether the recipient needs income, property address, loan balance, payment history, or proof of identity. Remove account and routing numbers, full Social Security numbers, unrelated co-borrower details, and signatures unless required.
Review every supporting page
Check pay stubs, bank statements, tax schedules, appraisal pages, closing disclosures, and attachments. Search alternate number formats and inspect barcodes, form fields, OCR, comments, and metadata. A redaction mark must cover scanned pixels as well as native text.
Verify the lender copy
Export a separate PDF, reopen it, search for removed identifiers, and check that calculations and requested figures remain readable. Confirm page order and remove attachments that were not reviewed.
Frequently asked questions
Should bank account numbers be visible?
Usually only the minimum digits needed for verification. Confirm the lender’s requirements before sharing a full number.
What about a co-borrower’s information?
Apply the same minimization rule to every person in the packet, not only the sender.
Is a password enough for a mortgage PDF?
No. Passwords control access; they do not remove information from an authorized copy.
Doing it in Basalt
Basalt keeps mortgage PDF review on-device and verifies that redacted identifiers, OCR, forms, and attachments are removed before export. Download Basalt.
Redaction that proves itself
Basalt destroys the content you mark, then re-opens the file it wrote and proves the content is gone before it saves anything. Your documents never leave your Mac.