A third of the income the bank would not count
A paramedic in Blacktown earned a base salary that looked modest on paper, and roughly a third again on top of it in shift penalties, overtime and allowances. That extra money is regular, rostered and years long. One lender counted almost none of it. Another counted nearly all of it. Same payslips, same borrower, very different budgets.
The situation
Permanent full-time with an ambulance service, six years in the role, rostered shift work with penalties paid at award rates, plus regular overtime. Buying a first home with a partner earning a conventional salary and a 12 per cent deposit between them.
The problem
Lenders discount variable income because it is variable. That logic is sound in general and badly wrong for rostered essential-services work, where the penalties are not windfalls but the structure of how the job pays. Applied bluntly, it can price a household out of a suburb they can comfortably afford.
What made it difficult
The treatments differ enormously. A common approach counts a fixed percentage of overtime, often somewhere between 50 and 80 per cent, averaged over one or two years. Some lenders count rostered shift penalties at full value where the employment is permanent and the pattern is documented, treating them differently from discretionary overtime. Some apply more generous policies specifically to essential-services and healthcare employment. The overtime and allowances guide sets out the landscape, and the healthcare guide covers profession-specific policies.
What a broker assesses
Two years of payslips and both PAYG summaries, to establish the pattern rather than a good quarter. The employment letter, confirming permanency and the rostered nature of the penalties, because a letter that describes overtime as guaranteed reads very differently from one that calls it available. Which components are award-based and which are discretionary, since lenders separate them. And then the placement decision, which on this file is worth more than any rate negotiation.
Illustrative sequence, the order and availability depend on the actual file and lender policy at the time.
The lending considerations
Evidence has to be genuine and durable. A borrower who loads up on overtime for six months to lift an application is building a repayment on hours they may not want in three years, and a good broker will say so. Where the roster is changing, or a move to part-time is planned, the honest assessment runs on the income that will actually be there. Lenders will also want to see that the base salary alone leaves the household somewhere near survivable, which is a reasonable test and a useful one for the borrower too.
What borrowers can take from this
If a meaningful share of your income arrives as penalties or overtime, the lender you apply to matters more than almost anything else about your file. Bring two years of evidence and an employment letter that describes the roster accurately, and ask specifically how each component will be treated before an application is lodged rather than after a number comes back low.
Related guides
This is an illustrative example scenario, not a description of a specific client and not a testimonial. The figures are realistic but rounded, no lender is named, and no outcome is promised, every application is assessed on its own facts. General information only, not credit or financial advice.
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