Guarantor Home Loans

In the past, lenders commonly allowed people to borrow 120% with a guarantor home loan. Unfortunately, these loans are no longer available.

With some lenders today, the maximum you can borrow is 105% of the purchase price or 110% if you have debts to consolidate.

Many people wishing to buy a home have consumer debt such as credit cards and personal loans. If you are in this situation, you will generally be able to consolidate debt when you purchase a property. Your total debts can usually be no more than 5-10% of the purchase price.

Many lenders will not allow second home buyers to apply for a guarantor loan, as they expect them to have a strong enough asset position to buy a property on their own. This is particularly unfair to people who have gone through a divorce or illness, forcing them to sell their previous home. Home Loan Experts knows which lenders are less conservative when assessing their guarantor loans.

Even though guarantor loans allow you to borrow 100% of the purchase price, many lenders still require you to have 5% of the price in genuine savings.This simply means money you have saved yourself. Sometimes a bank will accept a history of paying rent in place of genuine savings.

Other lenders do not have a specific policy regarding this. Instead, their credit scoring system may decline your loan based on your asset position relative to your income if you don’t have enough savings.

Banks view people who have a high income and a low asset position as high risk. Many young people spend their money on their education, a car, a wedding or travelling and begin saving for a house only later in life. These people are not high-risk borrowers, they just have different priorities!

Talk to Home Loan Experts to find out which lenders do not require genuine savings.

Only two or three lenders in Australia will accept no-deposit investment loans supported by a guarantor.

Home Loan Experts can often help you buy one investment property; however, guarantor loans for buying multiple investment properties are not normally approved. This is because the guarantor takes an unnecessarily high risk, whereas the borrower makes all of the potential profit.

If the guarantor is in a strong financial position, then lenders may consider loans for multiple investment properties.

If you cannot make your home loan repayments, then lenders will always take action on your property first before making the guarantor pay out the outstanding debt.

Repossession will commence only if the mortgage has been in arrears for 90-180 days.

You do not want the guarantee to be in place for the entire term of the 30-year loan. You should apply to the bank to remove the guarantee when the following conditions have been met:

• You can afford the repayments without any assistance.
• Your loan is for less than 90% of the property value (ideally 80% or less).
• You haven’t missed any payments in the last 6 months.

You must apply with the bank to remove the guarantee – it isn’t automatic!

Most people can remove the guarantee somewhere between 2 and 5 years after they set up the loan, although this can vary.

Many guarantees are set up because the borrower has no deposit, so removing the guarantee often depends on how much the property appreciates in value and how much in extra repayments the borrower can afford to make.

You can still remove the guarantee if you owe more than 80% of the property value, but you may have to pay LMI to achieve this.

To give you and your guarantor added protection in the event of default, you may want to consider getting life, total and permanent disability, and/or income protection insurance.

It’s not a requirement for qualifying for a guarantor loan, but it can allow you to pay out your home loan if you are hit with an unfortunate event that stops you from working.

You should seek advice from a financial adviser to ensure you choose an insurance product that suits your needs and financial situation.

That’s OK. As long as your guarantor has sufficient equity, some lenders on our panel can still secure a guarantee on their property, using a second mortgage.

Your guarantor should declare all loans secured on their property, including business or commercial property loans; otherwise approval may be withdrawn before settlement.

Do not commit to any property until:

• Consent for the second mortgage has been granted.
• A bank valuation has been completed on your guarantor’s property.
• Your lender has issued a formal approval.

The lender that already has a home loan secured on your parents’ property needs to consent to the guarantee being secured on the property. There is a small risk that they will deny or withhold consent, which can leave you high and dry.

How do lenders work out if your guarantor has enough equity in their property?

The total debt secured on the guarantors’ property – their current home loan plus the new limited guarantee – must be less than 80% of their property’s value.

For example, if your guarantor had a home loan with $100,000 due and needed to give a limited guarantee of $100,000, the total debt secured on their property would be $200,000. Their home must be worth $267,000 or more for the guarantor loan to be approved.

Don’t worry if this seems complicated! You can use our guarantor loan calculator to work it out or call Home Loan Experts on 1300 889 743 for more information.

Let’s say that after 3 or 4 years as your guarantor, your mom and dad decide they want to pull up stumps and sell their home.

It could be that they want to downsize or live their retirement dream of travelling the world. What do you do then?

Chances are you wouldn’t have paid down your mortgage to less than 90% of the property value by then (the minimum LVR at which you’d be able to remove the guarantee with most lenders)

So before they sign the guarantor arrangement, they should be aware they may be unable to sell the property or borrow on their mortgage when they want.

Before you tell your parents to hold off on whatever financial goals or dreams they had, you have some options

If you owe more than 90% LVR, are you able to come up with your own money to pay down the amount owing on the loan to get under that threshold?

The other option is that once your mum and dad sell, ask them if they can secure the guarantee with a dollar-for-dollar term deposit.

For example, if the guarantee were $90,000, they would need to provide the lender with a $90,000 term deposit as security

Most Australian banks will not accept a security guarantee from a retired or elderly guarantor.

Not every lender assesses guarantors this way. Some of our lenders can accept guarantees from people close to retirement, pensioners and self-funded retirees over 65, as long as they obtain legal advice before signing the loan offer..

Most banks will allow only a borrower’s parents to be guarantors.

Some lenders can consider guarantees from immediate family members such as siblings, grandparents, spouses, de facto partners or adult children.

Check out the guarantor eligibility page for more information.

You should never feel pressured to enter into a guarantor loan.

Choosing to act as a guarantor is a big decision so it’s recommended that you seek independent financial advice. Ask yourself the following questions:

• How big is the limited guarantee? Are you able to cover any outstanding costs should things go pear-shaped?
• Under what condition will you be liable to pay? Generally, banks will look to take action only if the mortgage is in arrears for 90-180 days.
• What is the character of the person you’re guaranteeing? This may be difficult to answer if it’s your own son or daughter, but you should be honest with yourself.

To protect guarantors, the Australian Banking Association has enforced a new Banking Code of Practice.

As part of these new guidelines:

• Guarantors must be given a minimum of three days to review their guarantee documents and consider their obligations before signing and returning the paperwork.
• Guarantors will have a cooling-off period after signing the agreement.
• Guarantors will be encouraged to seek independent legal advice before signing.
• If a guaranteed borrower gets into financial difficulty, or their circumstances change, the bank will notify the guarantor.
• The bank will attempt to retrieve assets from the borrower before starting action against the guarantor. If this is a concern, seek independent legal advice.

The guarantor is ultimately liable for a home loan should the borrower default.

People fear that banks will move quickly to sell a guarantor’s home to cover remaining debt after a default but banks try everything to solve the problem before taking this drastic step.

This is because there is often significant process and cost involved in trying to sell the guarantor’s home.

The bank knows it will struggle to break even by going down this path so it would much rather the borrower keep paying the mortgage. It will want to work out why the borrower is having trouble managing repayments and whether a solution can be found.

If you are a parent whose child is struggling to save a deposit and you want to avoid some of the risks of acting as a guarantor, a parent assist home loan may be better suited to your situation..

What if the sale of your child’s property isn’t enough to cover the home loan?

Remember, if you have a limited guarantee in place, you are liable only up to the agreed upon amount.

This is usually about 20-35% of the purchase price, plus stamp duty, conveyancing fees and other costs.

For example, if the outstanding debt is for $700,000, but the limited guarantee is for only $210,000, the guarantors are liable for covering the outstanding mortgage only up to $210,000.

Obviously, if the property sold for $700,000 or more, they wouldn’t have to worry about anything.

If the property sells for only $440,000, however, the guarantor will have to cover up to $210,000 with equity in their property to cover the shortfall, but won’t be liable for the remaining $50,000 [($700,000 – ($450,000 + $210,000)].

Of course, if the property sold for $590,000, then the guarantor would be liable for $110,000.

Guarantors should be aware of the size of the guarantee they’re providing.

Try to make this decision before your borrower receives home loan approval and signs the Contract of Sale, otherwise the borrower may default on the contract and be sued.

From the bank’s point of view, if you are borrowing more than 80% of your property’s value then there is a chance that they will lose money if you can’t make your repayments. Because of this they charge you a fee known as Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI) to protect themselves if there is a loss.

This fee can be quite significant, costing more than $10,000.

However, with a guarantee as additional security, the bank considers your family pledge loan to be under 80% of the value of your property combined with the guarantee’s value. As a result of this, they waive the requirement for LMI.

If your parents already have a home loan secured on their property, then the guarantee will need to be secured by a second mortgage.

This isn’t a problem in most cases; however, it can be an issue if your application isn’t submitted to the bank correctly.

Do not commit to any property until:

• Consent for the second mortgage has been granted.
• A bank valuation has been completed on your guarantor’s property.
• Your lender has issued a formal approval.

The lender that already has a home loan secured on your parents’ property needs to consent to the guarantee being secured on the property. There is a small risk that they will deny or withhold the consent, which can leave you high and dry.

The method of calculating the equity in your parents’ property can be very complex if they already have a loan. Please use our guarantor loan calculator or call us on 1300 889 743 for more information.

Very few lenders will allow you to buy a home and consolidate your credit cards or personal loans at the same time. We know which lenders will allow you to roll everything into one simple, low repayment each month.

Note that you can only consolidate a few minor debts, and if your debts are over 5% of the purchase price, then you will not be able to roll them into the mortgage with any lender. Your repayments must be on time, every time, before a lender will allow you to combine them into your new mortgage.

The less obvious risk of going into a guarantor loan arrangement is you splitting up with your partner and the partner choosing not to make mortgage repayments.

This not only puts you at risk of default but can also potentially put your parents in a precarious position.

Playing with the mortgage in this way is quite common when couples get divorced. In fact, they’re often advised by their solicitor to do so!

If you can get past the legal stoush, please get in contact with us by completing our free assessment form, and we can tell you how we can help.

We’re experts at buying out ex partners and we can start the conversation with your bank as to how this will work with your parents providing a guarantee.

Every lender seems to have come up with their own name for guarantor loans! St George Bank uses the term ‘Family Pledge’, CBA uses the term ‘Family Support’ or ‘Family Equity’, Rams uses the term ‘Fast Track’ whereas ANZ and Westpac use the term ‘Family Guarantee’.

Confused yet?

Don’t worry, they all mean nearly the same thing. Most of these terms refer to a security guarantee, as only a few select lenders allow other types of guarantees.

There are big differences between the bank’s credit guidelines, loan types and discounts for family guarantee loans.

Yes, it is possible to borrow 100% of the land and construction costs if you have a guarantor.

However, be aware that many lenders do not allow “loan increases” on guarantor loans. This means that if you buy the land and then apply for the construction loan later, it may be declined!

Please call us on 1300 889 743 to discuss your situation, we know how to structure your loan to get it approved!

Low doc loans cannot be used with the guarantor’s support as lenders are very conservative with their assessment of no financials home loans.

It may be possible to get around this if the guarantor takes out a loan on their property and lends this to you to use as your deposit. Although this is not an ideal situation, it can work for some borrowers.

We call this the 80/20 method as you will borrow 80% of the property value and your family member will borrow the other 20% on their property. Many lenders do not accept this financing method so please enquire online to speak to a mortgage broker that understands this loan structure.

Guaranteeing somebody else’s loan is a major commitment so you should always seek advice from the appropriate professionals such as your solicitor before deciding to proceed.

We recommend that you have a preliminary discussion with your solicitor before applying for the loan and then take the ‘Guarantee & Indemnity’ documents to your solicitor for legal advice before signing them.

It also helps to seek out a specialist mortgage broker like Home Loan Experts because there are many aspects to consider when applying for this type of mortgage:

• Getting approval: Lenders are more conservative than ever, but they are particularly conservative with guarantor loans. We know which lenders accept which types of guarantees and which lenders will accept someone in your situation.
• Know the terms and conditions: Some banks have simple terms and conditions for their guarantor loans and allow you to limit the amount of the guarantee. However many lenders will not limit the guarantee which means the guarantor could be in a much worse position if you cannot make your repayments.
• The exit strategy: The loan may have a term of 30 years, however you don’t need to keep the guarantee in place for that long. We can help you work out a strategy of either making extra repayments, or refinancing to remove the guarantee in as little as 2 to 5 years.
• Protecting the guarantor: If you cannot pay your loan then how can you protect your guarantor from having to pay your loan and possibly losing their home? Did you know that you can reduce the risk to the guarantor by obtaining insurance?

If you don’t set up your mortgage in the right way, you maybe putting your parents at a higher risk, or you may not be able to remove the guarantee as quickly as you would like.

Please call our mortgage brokers on 1300 889 743 or enquire online to find out how we can help you.