Self-employed and trusts
If your income does not arrive as a payslip, start here.
Sole traders, company directors, trust structures, and anyone a bank has already made feel like a problem.
Complex is not the same as difficult.
A lot of brokers quietly avoid self-employed files. They take longer, the paperwork is heavier, and there is more that can go wrong between application and settlement. That is exactly why I like them, and it is the part of this job I am genuinely better at than most.
The usual problem is not that you cannot afford it. It is that your income is legitimately hard to read from the outside. Add-backs, retained profit, a trust distributing to two people, a good year following a quiet one. A lender that reads it properly reaches a completely different conclusion from one that does not.
So the work is understanding your structure first, then choosing lenders whose policy fits it, and presenting the file so an assessor does not have to guess. That is most of the job, and it is not something a portal does for you.
And where the financials genuinely do not show what the business is doing yet, a low doc loan can be the way through in the meantime. It is a bridge rather than a destination, and the plan is to revisit it once the returns catch up.
What that covers
The situations this comes up in.
Sole traders and contractors
Usually two years of returns, sometimes less depending on the lender and how long you were in the same line of work beforehand.
Company directors
Where the salary on paper is not the whole story, and retained profit and add-backs change the picture considerably.
Trust structures
Discretionary and unit trusts, corporate trustees, director guarantees. Fewer lenders will look at it, which makes lender choice the whole game.
Low doc lending
Where the tax returns have not caught up with what the business is actually doing, a low doc loan can get you moving now on a different set of evidence. Rates, fees and deposit requirements are usually not the same as a full doc loan, so it is a short term arrangement with a plan to review it, not somewhere to sit.
Knocked back somewhere else
A no from one lender is a policy outcome, not a verdict on you. It is worth understanding why before accepting it.
Lender policy for self-employed applicants varies considerably and changes regularly. Low doc lending has its own criteria and generally carries different rates, fees and deposit requirements from a full doc loan. Nothing here is a promise of approval, and all applications are subject to assessment and lending criteria.
Worth a conversation before you go to a bank.
No obligation, no application, and I will tell you honestly if I am not the right person for it. Give me a call or send a note and I will come back to you.
Belrose NSW By appointment Northern Beaches and Eastern Suburbs