Dear Ms Wise, my partner and I want to buy our first property and on our salaries we can service a $1 million loan. But I am concerned the bank may not lend us this much because both sets of parents are helping us out. They would like to document the financial assistance as loans to protect the money if the relationship ends, but is this going to jeopardise our chances of getting the full $1 million loan? James

The wisdom: It’s often thought that taking a loan from parents reduces the amount that can be borrowed from a bank. But this is not always the case. A small subset of lenders – including some big banks – is more flexible in terms of excluding a parental loan from serviceability assessments, says mortgage broker Simon Orbell of Smartmove Mortgage Advisors.