Hino

Only if the house you are living in is in Australia.

When I qualified for Aged Pension I was informed that I did not have to continue to reside in Australia in order to receive the pension so I considered moving back to UK. I am presently ‘cashed-up’ and the funds on deposit were ( quite rightly ), severely reducing my pension entitlement.

So I hoped to be able to buy a house in UK, reducing the level of my funds and increasing my pension. I was informed that if I used the funds to purchase a home in UK, then Centerlink still consider that home to be an asset rather than a residence as it was located outside Australia.

This is possibly only of interest to those members who are over or approaching retirement age.

Bix

Thanks Evan, Carol and Wendy - appreciate your thoughts.

I already check out your company regularly Wendy.

HUP

I was on Centrelink benefits for two years and I remember the ballache of the audit forms. As ABC said your own home is not an asset its the fact that you have assets available to you which could be sold to lighten the burden on the state system.

When I went onto the benifit system all our savings were gone in 6 months. Its a shitty time but my life lesson that I learned was that the darm times do come to an end and you have to stay strong

HUP

Sorry to hear about your job Bix

It always pays to go and speak to Centrelink because there may be entitlements that you are not aware of. Hevs was always on the phone to them.

For example you may be entitled to a concession card which can get you discounts. They may only be small amounts but when your unemployed every cent can count.

Bix

Thanks Matt.

They have given me the concessions / Health Care Card.

Two health related things I've had to sort out are dentists and opticians but you can't use the card for those unfortunately. Pity because they swallowed up 10 weeks worth of Centrelink payments between them.