Do you know how much you can borrow with no LMI?

How Professional LMI Waivers Affect Your Maximum Loan Amount

The professional waiver removes the LMI premium, not the lender's serviceability assessment. Your maximum borrowing remains constrained by income, expenses, and the lender's buffer rates, regardless of whether LMI applies. The benefit is accessing higher loan to value ratios without the added cost, not increasing the total amount a lender will approve based on your income.

Consider a solicitor with gross income of $180,000 who has been offered a 90% LVR loan with waived LMI. The lender still applies a 3% serviceability buffer to the variable interest rate, assesses all disclosed liabilities including HECS, and applies the same debt-to-income thresholds as they would for any other applicant. The waiver allows borrowing at 90% LVR instead of 80% LVR, but it does not alter the income multiple or expense treatment.

Some solicitors assume the waiver increases their borrowing power beyond what they could access at 80% LVR with LMI paid. That assumption conflates two separate mechanisms. Serviceability determines how much you can borrow. The LVR determines how much deposit you need. The waiver changes the second, not the first.

Which Lenders Offer the Highest LVR Without LMI for Solicitors

Most major lenders cap professional waivers at 90% LVR for solicitors. A smaller number extend to 95% LVR, but typically with stricter income requirements, shorter qualified period thresholds, or limits on property type. At 95% LVR, some lenders will only approve owner-occupied purchases and exclude refinancing or investment purposes.

One lender that offers 95% LVR with waived LMI for solicitors requires a minimum of two years post-admission and restricts eligibility to those in continuous employment or partnership at a firm with at least five solicitors. Another lender offers the same LVR but applies a slightly higher interest rate margin compared to their 90% LVR product, effectively pricing the additional risk into the rate rather than charging upfront insurance.

If your deposit sits at exactly 10%, accessing a 90% LVR waiver is generally more consistent across lenders and does not carry the added rate margin or eligibility tightening seen at 95% LVR. The difference between 90% and 95% LVR is often a question of whether you need the extra leverage or whether you can deploy that capital elsewhere. For solicitors expanding a property portfolio, retaining capital for subsequent purchases or offsetting debt can outweigh the marginal benefit of stretching to 95% LVR on a single property. Further detail on LMI waiver policies is covered in our LMI Waivers for Lawyers page.

Serviceability Calculation When LMI Is Waived

Lenders assess your capacity to service the loan by applying a buffer to the current interest rate, typically between 2.5% and 3%, and calculating whether your net income can cover the hypothetical repayment along with all other commitments. This calculation does not change when LMI is waived. The waiver affects the lender's risk position, not your assessed ability to repay.

In a scenario where a solicitor earning $160,000 has a $600 monthly car lease, $15,000 in outstanding credit card limits, and a HECS debt indexed at $45,000, the lender includes the lease payment, applies a utilisation factor to the credit limit even if the balance is zero, and adds a notional HECS repayment based on the income threshold. If this solicitor is borrowing at 90% LVR with waived LMI, the lender still applies the buffer rate to the full loan amount when testing serviceability.

Some solicitors reduce their maximum borrowing by leaving unused credit facilities open or underestimating their living expenses on the application. Closing unused cards and providing a detailed expense breakdown supported by transaction history can shift your assessed capacity by tens of thousands of dollars. The waiver gives you access to higher LVR, but serviceability determines whether you can use it.

Fixed Versus Variable Rate Impact on Borrowing Capacity

Lenders assess serviceability on variable rate loans by applying the buffer to the current variable rate. For fixed rate loans, they apply the buffer to whichever is higher: the fixed rate or the current variable rate. If the fixed rate sits below the variable rate, the serviceability test uses the variable rate plus buffer, meaning your assessed capacity is the same regardless of which rate type you choose.

This matters when comparing products at different LVRs. A lender offering 90% LVR with waived LMI and a discounted variable rate may allow higher borrowing than a lender offering 95% LVR at a higher rate, even though the deposit required is smaller in the second scenario. The rate feeds directly into the serviceability formula, so a 0.3% rate difference can reduce your maximum loan amount by $30,000 to $40,000 depending on your income level. If you are weighing whether to stretch to 95% LVR, check whether the rate margin offsets the deposit benefit. Our page on Getting a Lower Interest Rate outlines how rate discounts are structured for professional borrowers.

How Investment Property Borrowing Differs Under LMI Waivers

When borrowing for investment property, lenders apply a rental income assessment and typically discount the declared rent by 20% to account for vacancy and maintenance costs. They then add 100% of the interest expense to your liability side, even if the loan is structured as interest-only. The net effect is that investment borrowing reduces your maximum capacity more than owner-occupied borrowing at the same loan amount.

Some lenders restrict professional LMI waivers to 85% or 90% LVR for investment purposes, even if they offer 95% LVR for owner-occupied loans. One lender that provides a 90% LVR waiver for solicitors on investment property requires the applicant to have no more than two existing investment loans and imposes a debt-to-income cap of six times gross income across all lending. If you already hold investment debt and are looking to expand, the waiver helps with the deposit but does not remove the cumulative serviceability constraint. Solicitors building a portfolio often structure purchases sequentially, refinancing or increasing offset balances between acquisitions to manage the serviceability impact. More on this approach is detailed in our Expanding Your Property Portfolio page.

Deposit Source and Genuine Savings Requirements at High LVR

Lenders offering 90% or 95% LVR with waived LMI generally require evidence that your deposit has been held in your account for at least three months. Funds transferred from a family member or received as a gift may not satisfy the genuine savings test unless they have been held and demonstrated as accessible savings over that period. Some lenders allow gifted deposits at 90% LVR but require a statutory declaration and evidence of the donor's account. At 95% LVR, most lenders tighten this and require genuine savings exclusively.

If you have the funds but they have been held in a trust account, offset account against an existing loan, or term deposit that matured within the last three months, you may need to demonstrate the source and continuity of those funds. One solicitor borrowing at 90% LVR provided six months of offset account statements showing consistent balance accumulation, which the lender accepted in place of a standard savings account. Another had sale proceeds from a previous property that had settled four weeks prior to application, which did not meet the three-month threshold, so the lender reduced the maximum LVR to 85% until the funds had been held longer.

Using Equity and Refinancing to Maximise Borrowing With No LMI

If you own property with sufficient equity, refinancing to access that equity while maintaining 90% LVR across the combined security can allow you to borrow more without paying LMI on the additional amount. Some lenders permit cross-securitisation where the existing property and new purchase are both held as security, and the blended LVR determines whether LMI applies. If the blended LVR stays at or below 90%, and you qualify for the professional waiver, no LMI is charged on either loan.

In practice, a solicitor owning a property valued at $800,000 with a $400,000 loan can refinance and access up to $720,000 in total lending across both properties without LMI if purchasing a second property and the combined value supports 90% LVR. The additional $320,000 can be used as deposit and costs for the new purchase. The key constraint is serviceability: the combined loan repayments must meet the lender's buffer test, and rental income from either property is discounted as described earlier. Our Home Loan Refinancing for Lawyers page covers how to structure refinancing when equity release is involved.

Interest Rate Discounts and Their Effect on Maximum Loan Amount

Solicitors accessing professional LMI waivers are often eligible for rate discounts that sit between 0.20% and 0.50% below standard variable rates, depending on the lender and loan amount. This discount improves serviceability by reducing the assessed repayment, which can increase your maximum borrowing by $20,000 to $50,000 depending on income and other liabilities.

One lender offers a 0.40% discount on loans above $500,000 for solicitors at 90% LVR with waived LMI, but the discount reduces to 0.20% if the loan is below that threshold. Another lender applies the discount only to the variable rate portion if you choose a split loan, meaning the fixed portion is assessed at the standard rate. If your income is borderline for the amount you want to borrow, structuring the loan to attract the maximum rate discount can make the difference between approval and decline.

Call one of our team or book an appointment at a time that works for you to discuss your borrowing capacity with LMI waived and how lender policy differences affect your maximum loan amount.

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