Buying independently after divorce.

By Steve Chin, Mortgage Broker · May 2026 · 8 min read

Mark came to us about three months after his divorce was finalised. He had been renting a small unit in Reynella and seeing his two children every other week, but the unit only had one bedroom. His kids, aged eight and eleven, were sleeping on an air mattress in the lounge room when they stayed. It was not a situation he wanted to continue.

He and his former wife had sold the family home in Aberfoyle Park as part of their property settlement. After paying out the mortgage, agent fees and conveyancing costs, and splitting the net proceeds according to their Consent Orders, Mark walked away with $142,000. It was the largest sum of money he had ever held. He wanted to use it as a deposit on a place of his own, somewhere close to the kids' school, with enough space for them to have their own room.

"I just wanted somewhere they could call home when they were with me," Mark told us during our first conversation. "They needed their own beds. Their own space. I needed them to feel like they were not just visiting."

The numbers on paper

Mark works as a plumber with a mid sized firm in the southern suburbs. His gross annual income was $95,000 at the time of his application, which is a solid income for a single borrower in Adelaide. On paper, he looked like someone who should have no trouble getting a home loan.

The complication was child support. Mark was paying $1,800 per month to his former wife under a private agreement that had been registered with Services Australia. That is $21,600 per year, and lenders treat it as a committed ongoing expense when calculating how much someone can borrow.

With $142,000 available for a deposit and an income of $95,000, Mark needed to borrow somewhere around $460,000 to $480,000 to buy a modest three bedroom house in the areas he was looking at. Morphett Vale, Hackham, and Reynella were the suburbs he had circled because they were close to his children's primary school and within reach of his workplace.

Where the first applications fell short

Before coming to Lendology, Mark had approached his own bank directly. They ran the numbers and told him he could borrow approximately $390,000. That was not enough. At that level, after accounting for stamp duty, legal fees, and the deposit, he would have been looking at properties under $400,000, and there was very little available in his preferred areas at that price point with three bedrooms.

He then tried a second lender online. Their assessment came back at $410,000. Closer, but still not enough to get him into the kind of property his children needed.

The reason was consistent across both applications. Child support of $1,800 per month was being assessed as a full expense at the lender's standard loading rate. Some lenders apply a buffer on top of that figure, or assess it alongside a higher interest rate stress test, which compounds the impact. On Mark's income, this meant the gap between what he earned and what the lender believed he could afford to repay was too narrow for the loan amount he needed.

"I was gutted," Mark said. "I kept being told I earned enough, but then the numbers did not work. It felt like I was being penalised for doing the right thing by my kids."

Finding a lender that assessed child support differently

When Mark sat down with me at our Daw Park office, I could see immediately that his situation was workable. His income was stable, his credit history was clean, and his deposit was genuine and well documented through the settlement. The only issue was how child support was being treated in the serviceability calculation, and that varies significantly from lender to lender.

Not all lenders assess child support and borrowing capacity the same way. Some load it at the full declared amount with an additional buffer. Others apply a reduced loading rate, recognising that child support obligations decrease as children age and eventually cease altogether. A handful of lenders also take into account the borrower's overall financial position more holistically rather than applying a rigid formula.

I identified a lender on our panel that assessed child support at a lower loading rate than the two Mark had already tried. This lender's policy recognised that Mark's children were eight and eleven, meaning the obligation would reduce and eventually end within a defined timeframe. Their serviceability model factored this in, which meant more of Mark's income was treated as available for loan repayments.

We submitted a full application. The result came back at $480,000 in approved borrowing capacity. That was $70,000 more than his bank had offered and $90,000 more than the first lender he had tried on his own.

Settling on a home in Morphett Vale

With his pre approval in hand, Mark started looking seriously. Within a few weeks he found a three bedroom house in Morphett Vale listed at $469,000. It had a good sized backyard, a single garage, and was a twelve minute drive from the kids' school. He negotiated it down to $465,000 and we moved to formal approval.

The loan settled without complications. Mark used his $142,000 from the property settlement as the deposit, which gave him a loan to value ratio that avoided the need for lenders mortgage insurance. The repayments were manageable alongside his child support obligation, and he still had a small buffer left over for furniture and moving costs.

"The first night the kids stayed, they could not believe they had their own room," Mark said. "My daughter kept opening the wardrobe and saying it was hers. It sounds like a small thing, but it was everything to me. I finally felt like a proper dad again."

What made this work

Mark's outcome was not unusual. We see clients in similar positions regularly. The factors that made this work were straightforward.

A genuine deposit from settlement proceeds. Mark's $142,000 was clearly documented through his Consent Orders and the settlement statement from the property sale. Lenders want to see where your deposit comes from, and settlement proceeds are a clean, well documented source. If you are preparing for this step, our guide on documents needed for separation finance explains what to have ready.

Stable, verifiable income. Mark had been with the same employer for six years and could provide his two most recent tax returns, PAYG summaries, and recent payslips. Lenders like consistency.

Clean credit history. Despite the financial strain of separation, Mark had kept all his repayments current. He had not missed a payment on the old mortgage, his credit card, or any other commitment. This matters enormously when lenders are assessing risk.

The right lender for his circumstances. This was the critical piece. Mark's income and deposit were the same across every application. The only thing that changed was the lender's policy on child support. Knowing which lender to approach, and why, is exactly what a separation finance broker brings to the table. You can use our solo borrowing calculator to get an initial sense of where you might stand.

If you are in a similar position

If you have recently separated or divorced and want to buy a home on your own, child support does not have to be a barrier. It is a factor, and it does reduce what you can borrow, but the extent of that reduction depends heavily on which lender you apply with.

A broker who works with separation clients regularly will know which lenders are more accommodating and can structure your application to give you the strongest possible result. That is what we do at Lendology every day. There is no cost to you for our service because the lender pays our fee when your loan settles.

If you want to understand how the process works, we are happy to walk you through it. A 30 minute confidential conversation is usually enough to give you a clear picture of what is realistic.

Steve Chin

Mortgage Broker at Lendology. Specialises in separation and divorce lending, helping clients buy independently after property settlement.

Last reviewed: May 2026

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