Broker guide
Mortgage Loans for Firefighters: Income and Evidence
Assess a firefighter’s home loan using base pay, roster earnings and allowances. Check employment evidence and any actual lender concession separately.
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Mortgage loans for firefighters depend on documented employment income and the lender’s treatment of roster pay. Separate base salary from overtime and allowances before calculating borrowing power. A lender can accept more of a firefighter’s variable pay without granting a lenders mortgage insurance (LMI) waiver.
Separate Base Pay From Roster Earnings
Read the employment contract alongside the payslips and put each pay component in its own line. Use the payslip’s gross earnings to identify income before tax and deductions. The amount deposited into the client’s account helps reconcile receipt, but it doesn’t explain the full pay structure.
Distinguish the following payments before applying lender policy.
| Pay component | What the broker needs to establish | What to keep separate |
|---|---|---|
| Base salary | Contracted hours, salary rate and employment status | Extra shifts and one-off back pay |
| Overtime | Hours paid beyond ordinary duties and whether they continue | An unusually busy pay cycle |
| Shift loadings | Payments for the roster actually worked | Assumed future night or weekend shifts |
| Allowances | Why each allowance is paid and whether it is fixed or conditional | Repayment of an expense the employee incurred |
| Reimbursements | Which work expense the payment repays | Salary available for ongoing loan repayments |
A label such as “allowance” needs explanation. Ask the employer to identify an unclear payroll code and whether payment depends on particular duties. Keep expense reimbursements outside the proposed income calculation unless the lender’s policy expressly supports their inclusion.
For example, a firefighter might receive a fixed qualification allowance alongside extra pay for a temporary deployment. Record those separately. Combining them under “salary” hides the question the lender needs to answer about continuing income.
Prove Continuity and Received Income
Match the firefighter’s employment status and roster history to the pay received over the lender’s evidence period. A permanent appointment, a casual role and a fixed-term contract need their own employment assessment. An occupation label doesn’t establish continuity.
Macquarie’s residential credit guidelines provide one lender-specific example. Where income beyond base pay supports servicing, its standard verification route uses two recent computer-generated payslips with at least three months of year-to-date (YTD) income. Shorter or missing YTD records need additional evidence under its policy, and casual or pay as you go (PAYG) contractor income has separate requirements.
Treat annualisation as a calculation to explain, not permission to repeat the highest payslip indefinitely. Compare the YTD total with earlier income evidence and identify any pay rise, unpaid leave or change in roster. When payments stop appearing on recent payslips, establish why before carrying them into the scenario.
In a hypothetical file, a firefighter earns $8,000 of overtime across six months. Doubling that amount gives $16,000 over a year before any lender adjustment. Multiplying one $2,000 overtime month by 12 gives $24,000 and overstates the observed pace by $8,000.
Neither calculation alone establishes accepted income. The file still needs the lender’s averaging method and evidence that the overtime continues. Keep the actual period worked beside the calculation so a reviewer can reproduce it.
Check Lender Conditions and Concessions
Apply the selected lender’s firefighter or emergency-services criteria to the client’s actual role and pay. Macquarie lists firefighters within its essential-services occupations and permits 100% of overtime when it is regular, ongoing and evidenced. That treatment concerns the income used to assess repayments.
Westpac’s emergency services policy also names eligible frontline employed fire officers or firefighters. It allows their overtime and allowances to be assessed at 100%, subject to its conditions. Establish that the applicant fits the employment category before using that treatment.
Keep income acceptance and LMI concessions as separate decisions. Westpac presents its emergency-services income policy separately from its occupation-based LMI waivers. A firefighter’s eligibility for the former doesn’t establish eligibility for the latter, and a medical-profession waiver cannot be carried across to this role.
If the proposed loan relies on a waiver, retain the written eligibility terms that apply to that applicant. Record the permitted loan-to-value ratio, which compares the loan with the property value, and any other waiver conditions. Assess deposit requirements and serviceability, the ability to meet repayments, separately from the waiver decision.
Prepare the Submission Evidence
Make the final scenario traceable from each accepted income figure to its supporting document and lender rule. A concise income worksheet can show the gross amount, evidence period, annualisation method and amount entered into the lender’s calculator. Identify excluded pay so it cannot be added again later.
Complete these checks before submission.
- Match the employer, role and employment status across the application and income documents.
- Reconcile base pay with the contract and explain changes in the YTD record.
- Attach the payslips and any additional income history the selected lender requires.
- Retain explanations for roster changes, unusual payments and unclear payroll codes.
- Match the calculator’s accepted overtime and allowances to the worksheet, including any lender adjustment.
- Record an LMI waiver only where separate eligibility evidence supports it.
If an updated payslip changes the income picture, revise the worksheet and serviceability result before relying on the earlier borrowing figure. The submission must show the income the lender can accept, with enough evidence to explain how the firefighter earns it.
