The current housing crisis can be seen in many ways. The most obvious is the reduced ability for younger Australians to get a foot in the property market. But there are other ways it hurts as well. One is the growing trend for couples who separate to stay together, at least physically, as it is too hard or too expensive to go out on their own to rent or buy.
Obviously it’s far from ideal if you decide you don’t wish to be together any longer and financial circumstances force you to stay in the same dwelling and to report on this situation to a third party, i.e. Centrelink. This situation comes up quite a lot in our consultations with people who are trying to navigate the Centrelink maze.
But it’s also relevant to those who are new to a relationship – at what point does a first date become a ‘relationship’? And we’ve had questions on how Centrelink views same sex marriage, a brother and sister who share, and a mother and daughter who also share. So read on for a summary of the main rules and how we’ve solved some of the Retirement Essentials members’ questions.
