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Client story · published with the clients’ permission
The file never changed. The reading of it did.
A husband and wife, buying an investment property through their family trust, had signed the contract and paid the deposit. The first assessment would not count her income from the family company and recorded servicing short by $2,128 a month. The document that settled it was the lender’s own credit policy, page 49: the income had been assessable all along.
30 minutes with Priyank, at no cost. We review your position and discuss how we will approach funding your deal. No lender sees anything until you say so.
Thirty minutes, and you will know which rule your file will be read under, before it is lodged.
The file
- Corporate trustee for a family trust
- Residential investment purchase
- Two lenders in the picture, not one
The numbers
- New lending $440,000
- Total lending assessed across both lenders $856,000
- Servicing shortfall on the first assessment $2,128 a month
The outcome
- Approved on the lender’s own policy, page 49
- Conditional approval, then settlement on the contract date
- No accountant engaged, no company financials supplied
The first read
Income the lender was already allowed to count, left out of the assessment.
He runs a business and works full time as a general manager. She works two jobs, one of them in the family company.
The assessor would not count her income from that company. The instruction was to supply company tax returns and financials if we wanted it considered.
That is not a small ask. It means an accountant, a fee, and weeks, on a file with a live contract and a deposit already committed.
What was at stake
Not a rate. Not a product.
A signed contract with a deposit already paid, and a family who had committed to a property they intended to hold for years.
When a buyer cannot complete, the deposit is the first thing at risk. Depending on the contract, not always the last. Most buyers do not learn that until it is happening to them.
What I did
Same income. Different door.
I said no to the route the assessor offered. Not because the documents did not exist, but because a stronger argument was already sitting in that lender’s own credit policy, on page 49.
1 · The policy on page 49
She was already an employee of that company, earning $30,800 a year. Under the lender’s related party employment policy, that income is assessable on an ATO income statement. No company tax return. No financials. No accountant’s fee.
2 · The facilities dragging it under
The existing loans with the second lender were what pushed servicing negative. My clients held $156,000 in available redraw and $144,000 in offset. I put all of it forward and offered to reduce balances before settlement.
3 · The credit card
Closed before settlement. Offered, not requested. I would rather clear a commitment off the file than spend a submission defending it.
4 · The income I left out
The second business income was left out deliberately. The deal serviced without it, and every extra income stream is one more thing an assessor has to verify. Fewer questions, faster answer.
A $2,128 monthly shortfall, closed without supplying a single document the assessor had asked for.
The file in three numbers
Same file, same numbers, different rule.
Client details anonymised and published with permission. Figures are file-specific and the call count is our own record. Not a representation of typical results. Every application depends on its own facts, structure, security position and the lender’s criteria at the time. Subject to lender criteria and eligibility.
Behind the scenes
The job was not to argue. It was to get the file read properly.
The first answer did not come from someone who had decided this family could not afford a house. It came from a credit assessor working a queue against a policy manual, under a service level clock, reading fields on a screen.
I know that because I used to be that person. I sat on the credit side and approved loans before I ever wrote one.
So the job was to get the file in front of someone with the authority and the context to read it properly, and to hand them something their own policy already said yes to.
Six days before the first answer arrived, I had asked the lender’s relationship manager out for a coffee. No agenda, nothing pending. When I needed him the following week, I was not a stranger with a problem. And when I went to him, I asked for his help. I did not hand him a complaint. Nobody inside a bank has ever moved faster because a broker was angry with them.
Thirty-nine phone calls. Assessment line, relationship manager, broker support, case management. Most of them went nowhere. That is the part of this work nobody sees and nobody bills for.
At one point I was told the file had been escalated. I rang the lender’s broker support line to confirm it. It had not been. I went back, said so, and it was escalated properly.
Being told something has been done is not the same as it being done.
How it ran
Seven stages, one of them a second reading.
| Stage | Detail |
|---|---|
| Contract signed, finance clause running | Deposit committed |
| Application lodged | $440,000 |
| First assessment: declined | Servicing short $2,128 a month |
| Policy argument submitted | Page cited, eight documents attached |
| Escalated through the relationship manager | Escalation confirmed directly with broker support |
| Conditional approval | Same file, read under the right rule |
| Settled | On the contract date the clients had signed |
This one took months, not weeks, and I will not pretend otherwise. It was a fight worth having, because the alternative was a family losing a property and a deposit over a rule the lender had already written in their favour.
Why it matters before you lodge
An assessment is a reading of your file. The rule it is read under decides it.
An assessor is not anyone’s enemy. They are reading a screen, under a clock, against a policy manual most brokers have never opened.
When a file falls short, it is often not because the borrower cannot afford it. It is because nobody put the right rule in front of the right person. That is why we read your file against the lender’s policy before it is lodged, on a straightforward purchase as much as on this one.
The question that decides a file is not whether you can afford it. It is whether the person reading it has the right rule in front of them.
Priyank Thakkar, Chief Vision Officer and Finance Broker, Prevail Finance · former bank commercial credit assessor and lending manager · Read his story →
Straight answers
What this file teaches.
Can income from a family company count for servicing?
Often, and the rule differs by lender. Under this lender’s related-party employment policy, a salary from a family company is assessable on an ATO income statement alone; other lenders want the company’s tax returns and financials as well. Knowing which rule applies before lodgement decides whether the file needs an accountant, a fee and three weeks, or a payslip. It is the kind of detail that makes one lender the right one for a file and another the wrong one, before anyone talks about rates.
Do redraw and offset balances help a servicing assessment?
They can, when they are put forward as reductions in the debt the lender has to service rather than left sitting as balances the assessor never sees. On this file, $156,000 in available redraw and $144,000 in offset, offered as balance reductions before settlement, closed most of the gap, and a credit card closed before settlement removed a commitment the submission would otherwise have had to defend.
What happens to my deposit if finance falls through?
That depends on your contract, and it is worth knowing the answer before you need it. If a finance clause is in place and you comply with its conditions and timeframes, you can usually terminate and recover the deposit. If the finance clause has expired, was never included, or its conditions were not met, the deposit is at risk, and depending on the contract it is not always the limit of what you can lose. This is a contractual question for your conveyancer or solicitor, not a lending question, and it is the reason a file with a live contract is treated as urgent.
Why did this one take months, not weeks?
Because a second reading has to be built, evidenced, lodged and then escalated to someone with the authority and the context to read it, and each of those stages sits in a queue. Read under the right rule from the start, the same file is a three-to-four-week settlement. That is the case for having the policy read before lodgement rather than after, and it applies to a clean file as much as to this one.
Next step
Have the file read under the right rule first.
Thirty minutes with me, and you will know which lender’s policy your file fits and what it needs before it is lodged. No credit enquiry, and no lender sees anything until you say so.
Or call Priyank directly on +61 404 442 211.
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