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.

In short

How do lenders assess self-employed income for a home loan?

Lenders assess self-employed income from your tax returns, notices of assessment, BAS and accountant-confirmed add-backs rather than payslips. The same figures can produce noticeably different borrowing capacity from one lender to the next, because each treats add-backs, retained profits and distributions its own way. The work is matching how your income reads to the lender whose policy fits it, and documenting it clearly. Eligibility, lender criteria, fees and charges apply, and approval rests with the lender’s assessment — no capacity or approval is promised upfront.

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.

Profiles four to six

  • Trust-business ownerBusiness 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-employedOne 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 changesYear-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.

Scoping call

20–30 minutes · structuredBusiness 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.

Documents

Personal + business · NoAs · BASTwo 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.

Pre-assessment

Multi-lender modellingBorrowing 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.

Application

Single lender · documentedApplication 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.

Approval & settlement

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

Year-end consistency

Tax-side prep, if engagedWhere 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.

Self-employed broking FAQs

How is this different from your Self-Employed Home Loans service page?

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.

Which self-employed profiles do you typically work with?

Sole traders with ABN income (consultants, allied-health, trades, creatives), day-rate contractors (often through a Pty Ltd or a payroll-company arrangement), Pty Ltd directors taking salary plus distributions, trust-business owners (trustee-company structures), and mixed PAYG-plus-self-employed households (one spouse PAYG, one self-employed). Each profile reads differently across the lender panel.

Why does lender choice matter so much for self-employed?

Because lender policy on self-employed income varies materially. Two lenders can take the same set of tax returns, BAS and bank statements and reach borrowing-capacity figures that differ by 20–40 percent or more. The variation comes from: which add-backs each lender allows (depreciation, company tax already paid, one-off expenses, interest on debts being refinanced), how each lender averages a multi-year income trend, how each lender treats business debt held by a Pty Ltd or trust, and how each lender shades secondary income. The right lender is the one whose policy fits your specific income shape — not the one with the lowest headline rate.

What does the broker engagement actually look like?

It starts with a scoping call — understanding your business structure, income shape, deposit, existing facilities, target property and timing. Document collection follows: two years of personal and business tax returns plus Notices of Assessment, the most recent four BAS, business and personal bank statements, debt statements and identification. Then comes pre-assessment and lender shortlist — multi-lender modelling against your specific position, before any credit-file enquiry. Once the lender is chosen and the formal application lodged, we track and report progress through to conditional approval, full approval, valuation and settlement.

How are you remunerated?

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.

Do I have to be a tax client of the practice as well?

No. Many of our broker clients keep their existing accountant arrangement and engage us for the lending only. Where you also want the same practitioner to handle the tax-return preparation that drives next year's application, the engagement combines naturally — and the year-end return is consistent with what the lender already saw. The choice is yours and is confirmed in writing before any work begins.

Can you confirm borrowing capacity or approval upfront?

No. We model lender policy carefully and prepare a written pre-assessment based on your documents and a specific lender's policy at the time. The lender's own assessment — covering verification, valuation, credit history, employment confirmation and current policy — is the binding outcome. Eligibility, lender criteria, fees and charges apply to every application. The pre-assessment is an indicative position, not a commitment by a lender.

How long does the process typically take?

For full-doc self-employed applications with clean documentation, scoping to conditional approval is usually 2–4 weeks. From conditional approval to settlement depends on the contract date and the lender's current valuation and settlement queues — typically a further 2–6 weeks for a purchase, or 4–8 weeks for a refinance. Trust-business or alt-doc applications run longer because the documentation and policy review is more involved.

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.