Eternity Group

Borrowers · Self-employed

Mortgage Broker — Self-Employed Borrowers

A Credit Representative who also prepares the underlying tax returns. Credit Representative 565110 under ACL 561324 held by Loans Only Pty Ltd. Sole traders, contractors, Pty Ltd directors and trust-business owners — how each lender on the panel reads your income shape, and how the application is built around the right lender from the start.

Book a Self-Employed Lending Scoping CallRead Credit Guide

Mr Rohan Manokaran (Credit Representative 565110) is authorised under Australian Credit Licence 561324 held by Loans Only Pty Ltd. Information on this page is general in nature and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Credit eligibility, lender criteria, fees and charges apply.

Why a broker-specific entry

A broker who reads your tax returns the same way.

Self-employed lending is a policy-matching exercise. The job of the broker is to know how each lender on the panel reads add-backs, multi-year trends, business debt and secondary income — and to match the application to the lender whose policy fits your specific income shape.

For a PAYG salaried borrower, lender choice is mostly about rate, product and service. The income reads the same way across most of the panel. For a self-employed borrower, lender choice is the single largest driver of borrowing capacity. The same set of tax returns, BAS and bank statements can produce borrowing capacities that vary by 20–40 percent or more across the panel.

That variation is policy, not preference. Some lenders take the lower of two years of self-employed income. Some take the average. Some take the most recent year where it is the higher and the trend is up, subject to current management accounts and YTD BAS. Some allow depreciation, company tax already paid and one-off expenses as add-backs. Some exclude them. Some treat a business loan held by a Pty Ltd as a personal liability at face value, some at a notional rate, some not at all where the business services it.

Doing the same exercise twice — once as the accountant preparing the year-end return, once as the broker building the application — is the inefficiency this engagement removes. Same practitioner, same documents, both sides of the application.

Income shapes we work with

Six self-employed profiles.

Sole trader

Direct ABN income, deductions and depreciation in the personal return. Two years of personal returns plus BAS and bank statements is the usual documentation rhythm. Lender shortlist tends to be broad.

Day-rate contractor

Often a single client or small number of agency contracts. Income shape varies by whether the contract is direct or through an agency, whether it is paid into a Pty Ltd, and how long the current contract has been running. Lender preferences here differ widely.

Pty Ltd director

Salary plus director fees, distributions and (where the structure supports it) franked dividends. Two years of personal returns plus two years of company returns and financials. Add-back appetite and treatment of retained profits at the lender matters.

Trust-business owner

Business operated through a discretionary or unit trust with a trustee company. Lender shortlist narrows; documentation expands. Beneficiary distributions and trust loss treatment shape the income read.

Mixed PAYG + self-employed

One spouse PAYG, one self-employed. Or one applicant with both PAYG salary and a side ABN. Lenders treat each income stream separately; the shortlist depends on the dominant income shape and the credibility of the secondary income.

Income trend changes

Year-on-year income shifts — up or down — change which lender is most accommodating. Upward trends are sometimes worth the most recent-year treatment; downward trends usually require explanation and current management accounts.

How the broker side works

From scoping to settlement.

01 · Scoping call

20–30 minutes · structured

Business structure, income shape, deposit, existing facilities, target property, timing. We confirm whether the engagement is full-doc and whether the right next step is pre-assessment, pre-approval or a formal application.

02 · Documents

Personal + business · NoAs · BAS

Two years of personal and business tax returns plus the matching Notices of Assessment, the four most recent BAS lodgements, business and personal bank statements, debt statements and identification. Secure upload.

03 · Pre-assessment

Multi-lender modelling

Borrowing capacity modelled against the most-likely lenders for your specific income shape. Written shortlist with policy rationale. Pre-assessment before any credit-file enquiry to protect your credit position.

04 · Application

Single lender · documented

Application built around the chosen lender's policy. Documentation already in hand. We respond to lender queries directly and report progress to you on a defined cadence.

05 · Approval & settlement

Conditional · full · settlement

Conditional approval first, then progression through full approval (valuation, employment verification, contract review where relevant) and settlement on the contract date.

06 · Year-end consistency

Tax-side prep, if engaged

Where the year-end tax return is also prepared by the practice, the income shown to the lender and the income lodged with the ATO line up. The year-end review supports — rather than contradicts — next year's application.

Mr Rohan Manokaran (Credit Representative 565110) is authorised under Australian Credit Licence 561324 held by Loans Only Pty Ltd. Information on this page is general in nature and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Credit eligibility, lender criteria, fees and charges apply.

How we are paid

How we are paid: Eternity Mortgage Solutions typically receives commissions from the lender for loans arranged on your behalf. A full explanation of how we are paid, our lender panel and any potential conflicts of interest is provided in our Credit Guide and Credit Proposal Disclosure document, available on request before any loan application is submitted.

Frequently asked questions

Self-employed mortgage broker — common questions.

The Self-Employed Home Loans page is the product-side entry — what a self-employed home loan actually looks like, how lenders read add-backs, the document list and pre-assessment process. This page is the broker-side entry — for borrowers searching specifically for a "mortgage broker for self-employed" who reads tax returns and BAS the same way at year-end as at the application. Underlying engagement model is the same; the entry point is different.

Related

Where this fits in the bigger picture

The self-employed broker entry connects to the product page, pre-approval, the long-form borrowing guide and the cross-cluster pages where the lending sits alongside the tax position.