Making a plan to cover your home loan
With a baby on the way, you have a lot to plan for – organising your parental leave, setting up a nursery, juggling medical appointments. While you can’t plan for everything, you can plan for how you’re going to manage your home loan repayments while on parental leave.
Our home loans have flexible options available to help you stay on top of your budget and cashflow while earning a temporarily reduced income.
Taking parental leave while on a fixed rate home loan
The benefit of a fixed rate loan is the certainty of the amount of your repayments during the fixed rate period. This also means your repayments on a fixed rate home loan won’t change before the period expires.
You can speak with us about breaking your agreement, however, you might be required to pay fees for ending the fixed rate period early, including economic costs.
In this circumstance, you might like to consider a temporary payment arrangement.
Loan flexibility with a variable rate home loan
Variable rate home loans come with the flexibility to make extra repayments, which means you can make additional repayments to get ahead on your loan.
You can find out if you’ve paid ahead by looking for your available redraw in the NAB app, NAB Internet Banking or on your statement.
If you are ahead on your loan repayments, there are a few different options to help you while on parental leave.
Reduce your regular repayment
If you’ve been paying more than the minimum, you can reduce your payment back to the minimum amount. If you’re eligible, you may be able to reduce your payments using the NAB app.
Learn more about changing repayments and accessing available funds.
Request a repayment holiday
If you’ve paid ahead on your home loan repayments, you can request a repayment holiday of between two and 12 months.
If you’re eligible, a repayment holiday lets you take a break from your repayments. During the repayment holiday:
- you’re not required to make your scheduled repayments (but you can make repayments if you wish to)
- your loan account will continue to be charged interest and relevant fees.
If you’d like to discuss this option to help decide if it’s right for you, speak to your banker or call us on 13 22 65.
Redraw your loan
If you’ve paid ahead on your home loan and have surplus funds available, you may want to use these funds as a buffer or for emergencies.
The amount you can redraw depends on how far ahead you are of your scheduled repayments. There's usually a minimum and maximum amount you can redraw. It’s important to check how much you have available to redraw before you make any commitments.
Redraw can give you flexibility and peace of mind when managing your budget.
I’m not paid ahead on my loan. What are my options?
If you haven’t paid ahead on your home loan, or you have a fixed rate loan, you may need some assistance to help manage your home loan repayments while your income is temporarily reduced.
Our Customer Care team may be able to assist you with several options, including arrangements where we don’t vary your minimum repayments but allow you to:
- pay less for a period (a temporary payment arrangement)
- pay nothing for a period (a payment break).
Contact Customer Care on 1800 701 599 to talk more about your situation and see how we can best assist you. You can also find out more about these options on our home loan support page.
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Request a repayment holiday
If you’re ahead on your loan and want to request a repayment holiday, you can call a banker.
Call Customer Care
if you might require assistance with your home loan repayments, speak with our Customer Care team.
Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 8:00pm (AEST/AEDT)
Saturday, 9:00am to 1:00pm (AEST/AEDT)
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Visit your nearest NAB branch to speak to us in person.
Important information
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The information contained in this article is intended to be of a general nature only. It has been prepared without taking into account any person’s objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on this information, NAB recommends that you consider whether it is appropriate for your circumstances. NAB recommends that you seek independent legal, financial and taxation advice before acting on any information in this article.
Target Market Determinations for these products are available at nab.com.au/TMD.
There are terms and conditions for a repayment holiday. These will be set out in the form we send you, if we agree to provide you a repayment holiday. Some key terms that apply are:
- you can only request a repayment holiday if you are paying principal and interest repayments, your interest rate is variable, you aren’t in default or experiencing financial hardship and you haven’t taken out your home loan as a trustee
- redraw is not available while you have a repayment holiday.
A repayment holiday won’t change your loan term, this means you need to pay out your loan by the end of the loan term. Your repayments may need to change after a repayment holiday to make sure that your loan is repaid within the loan term. We will let you know if that’s the case.