The deposit is a gift. Is that a problem?
A first home buyer in Blacktown was given $90,000 by her parents toward a $780,000 house. Her income was strong and stable, her credit was clean, and she had almost nothing in savings of her own, because every spare dollar had gone to rent for six years. Her lender asked to see genuine savings, and the file stopped.
The situation
A $92,000 salary with four years at the same employer, an unblemished credit file, and no consumer debt. The parents were selling an investment property and wanted to help while they could. The gift was real, unconditional and documented, but it had landed in her account nine days before the application.
The problem
Genuine savings rules apply at many lenders when the deposit is under a certain threshold, and a lump sum that appeared last week does not satisfy them on arrival. The rules exist because lenders read savings behaviour as evidence you can carry a repayment, which is reasonable, and largely blind to someone who has been paying more in rent than the mortgage would cost.
What made it difficult
The instinct is to wait three months for the funds to season, which works but costs a buying season. The better question is which lenders accept what. Some treat funds held for a defined period as seasoned regardless of origin. Some accept a documented rental ledger as a direct substitute for savings, exactly the case here. Some apply no genuine savings requirement at all above a certain deposit percentage. The genuine savings guide sets out how those rules differ, and the deposit checker on that page gives an early read.
What a broker assesses
The gift paperwork first, a signed letter from the parents stating the funds are a gift and not repayable, and a clean transfer trail from their account to hers. Then the rental ledger: agent-managed, six years, no arrears, which is the strongest form of the substitute. Then the deposit percentage against price, because the requirement itself softens as the deposit grows. And finally whether waiting eight weeks to season the funds opens a materially better rate, priced honestly rather than assumed.
Illustrative sequence, the order and availability depend on the actual file and lender policy at the time.
The lending considerations
Gift letters have to say the right thing. A letter describing the money as a loan, or as repayable on sale, changes the assessment entirely, because it becomes a liability rather than a deposit. Parents also deserve their own advice here: gifting is not the same as guaranteeing, and the two have very different consequences if things go wrong later. Where the parents would rather keep the money and lend their security instead, a family guarantee is the structure that does that, and it usually removes lender's mortgage insurance as well.
What borrowers can take from this
A gifted deposit is not a weakness in an application, it is a documentation exercise. Start the paperwork before you start inspecting: the letter signed, the transfer traceable, the rental ledger requested from the agent. The delays we see almost never come from eligibility. They come from evidence assembled the week the application is due.
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.
Family helping? Make it count properly.
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