Self-Employed Home Loans

Most major Australian lenders look for two years of complete personal and business tax returns plus the corresponding ATO Notices of Assessment. A small number of lenders accept a single full year of returns where the trend is clear and the rest of the application is strong. Documentation requirements at any individual lender vary; the lender shortlist for any given borrower depends on the documents you actually have.

Full-doc loans use the standard documentation: tax returns, Notices of Assessment, BAS, bank statements. Most self-employed borrowers qualify for full-doc with one of the lenders we work with. Specialist and non-bank lenders offer alt-doc or low-doc programs that may accept different evidence — for example, BAS plus an accountant's letter — but lender criteria, pricing and policy on alt-doc loans vary considerably. We discuss whether full-doc or alt-doc is the appropriate path at scoping; full-doc is the default unless there is a specific reason to consider alt-doc.

Add-backs are non-cash or non-recurring items in your tax return or business financials that lenders may add back to your taxable income for serviceability purposes — depreciation, company tax already paid, one-off expenses, interest on debts being refinanced. Different lenders allow different add-backs, which is why two lenders can reach materially different borrowing-capacity figures for the same applicant. Because we also prepare the year-end return, we know which add-backs each lender shortlist will support.

Typically: two years of personal tax returns (with Notices of Assessment), two years of company tax returns plus financial statements, the most recent four BAS lodgements, 3–6 months of business and personal bank statements, current debt statements (personal and business), and identification. Where the company holds business debt, the treatment of that debt varies by lender — added at face value, served notionally, or excluded — which is one of the main drivers of borrowing capacity variation.

Yes — but the right lender depends on the trend. Some lenders take the lower of the two years (conservative). Some take an average. Some take the most recent year where it is the higher and the trend is up, typically requiring current management accounts and YTD BAS as evidence the trend is continuing. Choosing the right lender for an upward-trending self-employed applicant is one of the larger sources of borrowing-capacity uplift in this segment.

Lenders generally take the lower year (or the average) and ask for a written explanation of the dip. Current management accounts and YTD BAS supporting current trading are typically required. Where the dip has a clear and recovered cause (a specific contract loss now replaced, a one-off business event), some lenders are more accommodating than others. We document the explanation and shortlist accordingly.

Most lenders include some portion of regular secondary income — typically with shading (rental income shaded 70–80%, dividend income often shaded or excluded if irregular). Treatment varies by lender. We model your full income shape against the most-likely lenders before any formal application.

No. We can model lender policy, identify suitable lender pathways and prepare the application carefully, but approval and borrowing capacity remain subject to lender assessment, verification, valuation, policy and credit criteria. A pre-assessment is a written estimate based on your documents and a specific lender's policy; the lender's own assessment is the binding outcome. Eligibility, lender criteria, fees, charges and serviceability assessments apply to every application. The right next step is a structured scoping call.