You have landed a better job, and the mortgage plans are ready to go, except the new role starts with six months’ probation, and somewhere you have heard that lenders will not touch you until it ends. The truth is more useful: probation is a policy question, not a verdict, and the answer varies enormously by lender.

Why do lenders care about probation?

A lender’s core question is whether your income will continue. Probation formally means your employment can end more easily, so conservative credit policies treat it as unproven income. But lenders also know how modern careers work: people change jobs to earn more, and a buyer six weeks into a better-paid role in the same field is often a stronger borrower than they were before the move.

How do lender policies differ on probation?

  • Some lenders decline during probation outright. These are real, and applying to one wastes a credit enquiry.
  • Many lend during probation with conditions, a signed full-time contract, a completed first pay cycle or two, and a stable employment history behind the move.
  • Some are effectively indifferent where the move is a clear continuation: same industry, same or better pay, no gap. Certain professions with structured career paths, and essential services, are viewed particularly kindly.

The pattern matters more than the rule: continuity is what convinces an assessor. Same field, upward pay, unbroken history reads as career progress. A pivot to a new industry after a gap is a harder story mid-probation, and sometimes the honest advice is to let probation pass first.

What strengthens an application on probation?

  • Your employment contract, permanent role, full-time hours, salary stated plainly.
  • Evidence of the pattern, a CV-shaped history showing this is progression, not churn.
  • First payslips, even one or two convert the contract from promise to fact.
  • Clean conduct everywhere else, savings history, no missed payments, sensible card limits. When one part of the file asks for trust, the rest should be spotless.
  • A solid deposit. More equity gives the lender more room to say yes.

Does probation affect the government schemes?

Probation does not disqualify you from the 5% deposit scheme or NSW duty relief, those assess deposit, price and first home status, not tenure. The constraint is that the scheme lender still applies its own employment policy, so the practical question becomes which participating lenders are comfortable with probation, which is exactly the kind of matching a broker does daily.

Should you apply now or after probation?

If the right property is in front of you, a probation-friendly lender means you do not have to wait. If nothing is urgent, waiting out probation widens your lender choice and sometimes sharpens your pricing. Both are legitimate strategies; the mistake is assuming you have no choice in either direction.

How does probation differ across employment types?

The word covers several situations that lenders treat quite differently. A permanent full-time role with a standard probation period is the easiest case, because the underlying contract is ongoing. A fixed-term contract, such as a twelve-month appointment, is assessed on the contract’s length and the likelihood of renewal, with many lenders wanting a history of previous contracts or a minimum time remaining. Government and essential-service roles tend to be viewed favourably regardless of probation, because the employment is structurally stable. A casual role has no probation in the formal sense but carries its own history requirements, covered in the casual employment guide. Knowing which of these describes you tells you roughly how wide your lender choice is before you make a single call.

What if you move from self-employed to a salaried role?

A particular case worth spelling out: someone who has been self-employed and takes a salaried position, starting on probation. Here the lender sees a new employment type and a new probation at once, and the two-year history it would normally want for self-employed income is no longer relevant to the new role. The strength of the application comes from the continuity of the profession. An accountant who closes a practice to join a firm is doing the same work for a more predictable income, and lenders with sensible policies read it that way. The guide to self-employed lending covers the reverse journey.

What if you change jobs after pre-approval?

This is the scenario that catches the most buyers out. A pre-approval is an assessment of your employment on the day you applied. Accepting a new job afterwards, even a better one, means the lender will reassess at final approval, and a lender that was comfortable with your previous role may not be comfortable with a new one on probation. If a move is on the cards, the order of operations matters: tell your broker before you accept, not after you have exchanged contracts. Sometimes the right answer is to delay the start date; sometimes it is to switch to a lender that does not mind; occasionally it is to wait. What it should never be is a surprise at valuation.

What timeline tends to work?

  • Before you accept the new role: a quick check on how the move affects your lender options, particularly if you are already pre-approved.
  • On signing the contract: keep a copy; it is the first document a lender will ask for.
  • After the first one or two payslips: this is the point at which several lenders that would not assess a contract alone become available, and it often arrives within four to eight weeks of starting.
  • At the end of probation: the full market opens. If nothing is urgent and your target lender is a conservative one, this is the cleanest moment to apply.

How do you prepare a strong application on probation?

When one line of a file asks for trust, the rest should remove every other question. Before applying on probation, reduce credit card limits to what you use, clear any small loans you can, and let three months of statements show a steady savings pattern with nothing unusual in it. Write a short, factual employment history that shows the new role as the next step in a sequence: the previous role, its duration, the reason for the move, and the pay progression. Gather the new contract, the offer letter and any payslips received so far. Then choose the lender deliberately. A file like this, lodged with a lender whose policy accepts probation, is routinely approved. The same file lodged with a lender that does not is a wasted enquiry, and the difference between the two outcomes is information, not luck.

It also helps to be realistic about the size of the loan. A buyer on probation asking for the absolute maximum their income supports is asking the assessor to extend the most trust at the moment there is least evidence. A loan with some headroom under capacity reads as a considered application, and it is the one more likely to be approved without conditions.

Questions people ask

Do I have to tell the lender I am on probation?

Yes. Your employment contract will show it, and lenders verify employment directly. An application that is accurate about probation and strong everywhere else is far better placed than one that hopes nobody notices.

Will I pay a higher interest rate because of probation?

Generally not. Lenders that accept probation do so at their normal rates; the difference between lenders is whether they say yes, not what they charge for it.

Does probation affect the 5% deposit scheme?

Not the scheme itself, which does not test employment tenure. What matters is that the participating lender you apply through is comfortable with probation, which narrows the list but does not close it.

Tell Charles where you are in the move, new contract signed, started last month, three months in, and he will tell you which lenders fit today and which fit in three months. That single conversation replaces a lot of guessing.

General information only, not credit, legal or tax advice. Your situation is assessed properly before any recommendation. Government scheme details change; figures are current at the time of writing.