Maintenance income: accommodation expenses 277-51100010

Accommodation expenses that may count as child support are:

• mortgage payments
• rent
• free (or less than market rental value) accommodation
• board
• lodging

Accommodation provided as child support or spousal maintenance as part of a property settlement should be assessed differently. This is assessed as Capitalised maintenance.

Things to consider when working out the value to the receiving parent:

• Who provides the assistance? It must be a person liable to pay child support or spousal maintenance
• Who owns the accommodation? Unless there has been a formal property settlement, a property owned by either parent at separation is taken to be jointly owned (50% each)
• Who lives in the accommodation? If a customer is not living in the accommodation being paid for or subsidised, it should not be assessed as child support unless it is stated as such in a court order or an agreement registered with a court or Child Support. If the paying parent also lives in the house, do not assess the first 50% of the full amount payable

Child Support agreements with a start date of 1 July 2008 or later are no longer manually assessed or coded by Centrelink staff, they are assessed by Child Support.

For agreements with a start date before 1 July 2008, any non-cash maintenance must be manually recorded on the Centrelink system for the period up to and including 30 June 2008. For agreements in place before 1 July 2008 that have been accepted by Child Support and transitioned under the Child Support Scheme Reforms from 1 July 2008, non-cash maintenance previously coded on the Centrelink system is maintained by Centrelink.