Keeping the house on one income

The situation

The home is worth about $1.45 million with $520,000 owing. The property settlement gives the staying parent the house in exchange for the $310,000 payment. Child support of roughly $1,400 a month is registered and reliably paid. The refinanced loan would be about $830,000, on one income.

The problem

Servicing $830,000 on $105,000 is demanding under any lender's buffered assessment. The question that decides the file is what else counts as income: many lenders will assess registered, demonstrably-received child support, some fully, some partially, some only while the children are young. Lender selection is not a detail here; it is the whole outcome, as our separation guide sets out.

What made it difficult

Three pressure points. Serviceability: even with child support counted, the numbers are tight, and honest levers, term length, expense discipline, a small contribution from the settlement's other assets, all matter. Sequencing: lenders want the settlement documented before approving the buyout refinance, but the numbers must be tested before the agreement is signed, or the parent may agree to a buyout no lender will fund. And the emotional weight: this decision needs numbers precisely because everything else about it is not numerical.

What a broker assesses

Full single-income serviceability at buffered rates, with and without the child support counted, across the lenders that accept it. The equity position, deep equity is what makes the file possible at all. The duty exemption, confirmed through the solicitor, which saves genuine five-figure money on the transfer. And the honest alternative, costed: what selling, splitting and rebuying elsewhere actually looks like, so the decision to keep the house is a choice rather than a reflex.

The lending considerations

Files like this succeed on deep equity, formalised child support at a lender that counts it, and a settlement negotiated around fundable numbers. They fail when the buyout figure was agreed emotionally first and tested financially second. A broker's most valuable contribution often happens before mediation, not after, and where the honest answer is "the house cannot be kept", hearing it early protects everyone, children included.

What borrowers can take from this

Test the lending before you agree to the buyout, not after. Formalise child support if it needs to count. Use the duty exemption, it is real money, routinely missed. And let the alternative be priced properly: keeping the house is sometimes the right answer and sometimes a financial anchor; only the numbers know which.