First Home Guarantee Documentation: What You Need and What Delays Applications

By Andrew Paterson

The October 2025 changes removed income caps and place limits from the First Home Guarantee, but they didn’t simplify the paperwork. The scheme still has its own documentation requirements on top of what your lender asks for, and some of it takes longer to organise than people expect.

What you need to apply

Your lender will ask for the usual loan documents:

• Identification: passport or birth certificate, driver’s licence and Medicare card (including your position number on the card)
• Income evidence: recent payslips, employment contract and your last two tax returns with Notices of Assessment
• Financial statements: showing your deposit savings and any existing debts
• If self-employed: last two years of business tax returns, financials and an accountant’s letter
• If building rather than buying established: a fixed-price building contract before the loan settles.

Those are straightforward. The scheme-specific documents are where things get held up.

The Home Buyer Declaration

The Home Buyer Declaration looks like standard paperwork, but it’s actually a Commonwealth Statutory Declaration under the Statutory Declarations Act 1959.

That matters because if Housing Australia later finds incorrect information, even after you’ve settled, the guarantee can be cancelled. At that point you’d need to refinance and likely pay LMI.

Each applicant completes their own form, and joint applicants can’t witness each other’s signatures. You’ll need an authorised witness like a pharmacist, police officer or permanent teacher, so it’s worth organising that before your broker starts the application.

The ATO Notice of Assessment

Since income caps were removed in October 2025, a lot of buyers assume the Notice of Assessment is no longer needed.

Your lender still requires it for their own serviceability assessment, so without a current NOA your application won’t progress.

This creates a timing crunch between July and August each year. Lenders need the NOA from the financial year just ended, but the ATO recommends waiting until late July for pre-fill data. Processing takes a couple of weeks after that.

Most lenders will let pre-approval progress during this window, but settlement can’t happen until the NOA comes through.

If you’re planning to buy mid-year, getting your tax return lodged early makes a real difference.

Your Medicare card position number

Housing Australia needs your Medicare number including your position on the card. That’s the number printed to the left of your name. It has to match exactly, and it’s outlined in the 5% Deposit Scheme Information Guide.

If you’ve recently moved off a parent’s card, your number will have changed entirely.

An expired green card can create mismatches too. Worth checking yours before you apply.

De facto relationship proof

Couples who aren’t married need to prove their relationship to their lender. The scheme itself has no minimum duration requirement (unlike immigration partner visas requiring 12 months), but lenders want to see documentation like a joint lease, shared bank accounts, joint utility bills or a statutory declaration.

If you don’t have much formal paperwork connecting you as a couple, even a statutory declaration from a family member can help.

Proving 10 years of non-ownership

If you’ve owned property in Australia before but it’s been more than 10 years since you sold, you qualify as a “returning buyer.”

Housing Australia can cross-reference ownership records across every state and territory you’ve lived in, so you may need title searches or settlement statements going back a decade.

The definition of “property” is broader than most people realise. Vacant land counts. Commercial property counts. Company title interests count. Being briefly on a parent’s title for estate planning? That counts too.

If any of that applies, it’s worth gathering your documents well before you start looking at properties.

Talk to someone who deals with this every week

Most documentation delays are avoidable with a few weeks of preparation. A 15-minute chat with one of our brokers will tell you exactly what you need for your situation and flag anything that might take time to organise.

No cost, no pressure, no paperwork until you’re ready.

Book a free lending strategy session or call us on  (03) 5222 7453.