The full answer
What actually decides it.
Neither, for mortgage purposes. It is not income, and a lender will not count it as an asset either.
Practice accounts frequently carry a notional figure for goodwill, and it can be a large one. Valuing goodwill in a dental practice is a specialist exercise in its own right, which is part of why lenders are wary of leaning on the number – but the more fundamental reason is simpler than that.
Goodwill only turns into money when the practice is sold. Until that happens it is an accounting entry rather than something you can draw on, and a lender assessing what you can afford each month is looking for money that exists now. So it does not go in as an asset.
It certainly never goes in as income. The goodwill of a business contributes to generating income – that is what it describes – but it is not itself income, and counting both would be counting the same thing twice.
None of which makes it irrelevant to your position generally. It is simply not one of the figures that determines what you can borrow on a home.
Where lenders differ
- Nothing to report. All lenders treat goodwill the same way on a residential mortgage: not as income, and not as an asset that supports borrowing.
Written from Colin Wallace’s own answer, given on his recorded interview with Joe Wallace of 26 August 2026 and reviewed by Colin Wallace.