Single mother and a mortgage. Banking algorithms know no mercy

Just a few months ago, I had no idea that buying an apartment would become an emotional rollercoaster for me. I am a single mother of two daughters. I have been running a sole proprietorship since 2019. In the meantime, I gave birth to a child, so the business was suspended for a year. Not because there was a lack of customers or money. I just became a mother.

For most banks, however, this does not matter much. The documents only mention “business interruption”. There is no section: “birth of a child”. There is no room for context.

Continuity of income. Why does motherhood look like a business problem in a bank?

I started looking for an apartment in the fall of 2025. First, I tried to buy a place on the secondary market. It was close – I found an apartment with a garden, three rooms and in a good location. Ultimately, however, I lost to another buyer who offered several dozen thousand zlotys more.

I needed to find a new place to live quickly. Renting was supposed to be a temporary solution, but there were difficulties here too. A single mother with children is not a dream tenant for many owners, especially when she declares that she only wants to rent the apartment for a few months.

So I returned to the development investment, which I had previously rejected due to the long completion date. This time everything started to go my way. I found an apartment with adequate space, a garden and a playground right next to it.

However, the greatest challenge was yet to come.

Most banks expect entrepreneurs to have an uninterrupted business history of at least 24 months. Meanwhile, just over a year and a half has passed since my company was reopened.

As Grzegorz Chachaj, a financial expert at mFinanse, explains, banks do not distinguish the reasons for suspending operations.

— Banks count the period of operation from the date of suspension. They don't ask for a reason – emphasizes the expert.

This means that a person who suspended a business due to financial problems and a woman who did it solely because she became a mother are treated identically.

Read also: A new reality on the mortgage market. Creditworthiness under the pressure of changes

Single mother and creditworthiness. Double filter of banking algorithms

In the case of single parents, the problem is even more complex. The bank does not only see income. He also sees the number of dependents.

A child means higher costs of living for the household, and therefore lower creditworthiness. A single parent cannot also “split” responsibility for the loan with the other borrower.

As a result, single parents running a business are subject to a double risk assessment filter:

• entrepreneur instead of a full-time employee,
• one income instead of two,
• dependent children,
• often additionally a break in the history of activity.

This is particularly visible in the creditworthiness calculations prepared by an mFinanse expert.

In some cases, the difference between a childless person and a single parent amounts to several hundred thousand zlotys in available financing.

This is interesting because recently I wrote about how just having a child lowers your creditworthiness. In the case of single parents, this effect is multipliedbecause the entire cost of maintaining children is attributed to one household.

800 plus benefit and alimony. What do banks take into account and what do they still not see?

The situation is gradually changing. Some institutions have started to take into account the 800 plus benefit when calculating creditworthiness.

However, experts emphasize that the benefit does not compensate for all the limitations resulting from single parenthood.

It is even more controversial the issue of alternating care.

In my situation, my children's father and I reached a mediation agreement providing for week-to-week care. In practice, this means that the costs of maintaining children are shared between two parents. However, banks most often do not take this into account.

As Grzegorz Chachaj from mFinanse points out, the applicant is charged for the full number of children he or she has, regardless of the care model.

So a paradox arises. Parents providing alternating care are treated by banking models as if each of them independently supported the children at all times..

The situation is slightly better in this case alimony. Some banks allow them to be taken into account when analyzing creditworthinessbut it is still the exception rather than the standard.

Read: Remote work and high housing prices. Poles are changing their lifestyle

The age of the borrower. After 40, every limitation weighs more

Age also affects creditworthiness. People approaching the age of 40 have a shorter potential loan repayment period than people in their 20s. If the loan schedule reaches the client's retirement age, some banks assume a decline in income in the future, which may further limit the maximum available amount of financing.

In practice, this means that a single mother in her forties, running a business and raising children, often faces several factors that reduce her creditworthiness at the same time.

Mortgage loan for a single mother. It worked, but the system still can't keep up with reality

My story ended happily.

After an unexpected refusal from one of the banks, related – as it turned out – to a very restrictive assessment of the provisions of the development contract, I submitted an application to other institutions. Ultimately, I received a positive decision from mBank and signed the loan agreement. Today I am waiting to collect the keys, finish the apartment and move.

However, this does not change the fact that the whole process showed me how many elements of modern family life are still not reflected in credit risk assessment models.

Banks increasingly include the 800 plus benefit. Some take into account alimony. However, they still do not distinguish between a break in business due to motherhood and business problems. They still do not understand the specificity of alternating care. They are still very cautious towards entrepreneurs, even if they have been generating stable and predictable income for years.

And yet There is a fundamental difference between an entrepreneur who suspended her business because she gave birth to a child and an entrepreneur having financial problems..

For banking algorithms, there is often none.