On a mortgage verification of employment form, the probability of continued employment is the line where your employer states whether your job is expected to keep going. Lenders rely on that single answer to decide whether your income will last long enough to support the loan, and when income has any defined end date, they need documentation showing it will continue for at least three years from the note date.1Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae Selling Guide – B3-3.1-01, General Income Information A hedged or negative response from your employer can stall or sink an otherwise strong application, so it helps to know exactly what the field is, how underwriters read it, and what to do if the answer that comes back is not what you hoped.
What the Field Is and Where It Lives
The probability of continued employment sits on line 11 of Fannie Mae Form 1005, formally titled the Request for Verification of Employment.2Fannie Mae. Request for Verification of Employment Your lender sends the form directly to your employer, not to you. It asks for your start date, current position, base pay, and a breakdown of overtime, commissions, and bonuses over the prior two years. Line 11 is where the employer weighs in on whether your position is likely to continue, then signs and dates the form before returning it to the lender.
Line 11 is an open field, not a checkbox. Employers can write anything from a single word like “good” to a qualified statement such as “position funded through end of fiscal year.” That openness is what makes the field so consequential. A vague answer lands in front of an underwriter who has never met you and whose job is to spot risk. Anything that reads as hedging tends to invite follow-up questions, and those questions slow the file down.
How Employers Typically Answer
There is no standard phrasing. In practice, responses fall into a few buckets:
- A short positive word or phrase such as “good,” “excellent,” or “likely to continue.” This is what underwriters want to see and what moves the file along without extra questions.
- A refusal to answer, often marked “N/A” or left blank. Many large employers have policies against commenting on future employment, and some HR departments will not complete Form 1005 at all.
- A conditional or qualified answer that ties your job to a fixed date, a specific contract, or a funded project.
- A genuinely negative answer stating that the position is being eliminated or that layoffs are planned.
Each of these gets treated differently, and the difference matters.
How Underwriters Read the Answer
Underwriters know the difference between an employer that will not speculate and an employer that has bad news to share. A blank or “N/A” is not the same as a negative response, and the guidelines reflect that.
For VA loans, the rule is explicit. If an employer marks the probability field as “N/A” or otherwise declines to answer, the lender moves on and evaluates income reliability based on how long you have worked there and your broader employment history.3eCFR. eCFR Title 38 Part 36 Subpart B – 36.4340, Underwriting Standards, Processing Procedures, Lender Responsibility, and Lender Certification Conventional and FHA underwriters follow the same logic in practice. Silence from a corporate HR department is common and does not, by itself, disqualify you.
A qualified answer is where things get careful. If the employer writes that your role is funded through the end of the quarter or the end of a contract, the underwriter has to weigh whether that end date leaves your income likely to continue for the three-year window the guidelines expect. Sometimes context resolves the concern (contract renewals happen routinely in your field, for example), and sometimes it does not.
An affirmatively negative response is the hardest case. If your employer states that your position is being eliminated or that layoffs are planned, the underwriter has to treat that income as unlikely to continue. Federal Ability-to-Repay rules require the lender to make a reasonable, good-faith determination that you can actually afford the mortgage based on verified information, and an employer’s own statement that the job is ending is verified information the lender cannot ignore.4Federal Register. Ability-to-Repay and Qualified Mortgage Standards Under the Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z)
The Verbal Verification Comes Last
Even after Form 1005 has been returned and reviewed, the lender does one more check before funding. Fannie Mae requires a verbal verification of employment within 10 business days before the note date for employment income and within 120 calendar days for self-employment income.5Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae Selling Guide – B3-3.1-04, Verbal Verification of Employment The lender calls your employer’s HR department or the business owner directly to confirm you are still employed and your compensation has not changed. If something has shifted, the loan can be suspended even after you have signed closing documents. This is why the probability question is not the last word: a “good” answer on line 11 still has to survive a phone call at the finish line.
What to Do If You Expect a Problem Answer
If you have reason to think your employer will decline to comment or will write something less than encouraging, a few steps help.
Ask your HR department in advance what its policy is on Form 1005. Many companies use a third-party service like The Work Number to handle payroll verification requests and will not complete the paper form at all.6U.S. Department of Labor. Employment Verification Automated reports return salary history and employment dates almost instantly, but they do not include a probability of continued employment response. If your employer routes everything through such a service, your lender may still need a supplemental verbal or written verification, and knowing that ahead of time avoids surprises.
Check your own automated report before you apply. When a lender pulls your employment data through The Work Number, that report is a consumer report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. If the data is wrong, you can dispute it directly with the reporting company at no charge, and the company must conduct a reasonable investigation, generally within 30 days.7Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Work Number Incorrect employment dates, missing income, or outdated titles can make your file look weaker than it is. You can request one free report annually.
Make sure your loan application matches your employer’s records. Discrepancies between the numbers you gave your lender and the numbers on the returned Form 1005 will trigger a manual review, which slows everything down.
If a negative response comes back, the path forward usually involves qualifying with different income (a co-borrower’s earnings, for example), showing substantial cash reserves that could cover payments during a transition, or accepting that the loan may not be approvable under current circumstances. There is no way around the Ability-to-Repay standard, but there is often a way to restructure the file so the qualifying income does not depend on the shaky job.
The Same Continuity Logic Reaches Other Income
The probability of continued employment question on Form 1005 applies to job income, but the underlying continuity rule reaches every income source used to qualify. Income without a defined end date needs documented receipt history but no separate proof of continuity. Income with a defined expiration must be documented as likely to continue for at least three years from the note date.1Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae Selling Guide – B3-3.1-01, General Income Information
Social Security retirement benefits based on your own work record are treated as ongoing, and lenders do not need to verify continuity unless they have a specific reason to doubt it. Benefits based on someone else’s work record, such as survivor benefits or benefits you receive on behalf of a dependent, require an SSA award letter, proof of current receipt, and documentation that the income will last at least three more years.8Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae Selling Guide – B3-3.4-15, Social Security Income If the benefit is tied to a beneficiary’s age, confirming the age satisfies the three-year test.
Pension and retirement income falls into what Freddie Mac categorizes as income that “may or may not have documentable continuance.” The lender has to understand the specific benefit type well enough to decide whether a defined end date applies. Annuities funded by a depleting account, for example, require proof that the balance will support payments for at least three years. A pension from a defined-benefit plan backed by a solvent employer or government entity generally does not.9Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide – 5301.1, General Requirements for All Stable Monthly Income and Asset Qualification Sources
In every case, the underwriter is asking the same question the probability field asks about your job: is this income going to be here long enough to matter?