G'day I'm a new member and thought I'd make contact. My wife, Barbara and myself are in our mid to late 60's and have travelled extensivly over the last 20 odd years. We currently have our home on the market and intend to undertake a long stint on the road and take our time in visiting the places we have rushed through in the past.
Recently, I was perusing the internet, looking for "grey Nomads" sites and I came across an article from S.A. where a caravan park owner was complaining that "Grey Nomads" were wroughting the system in claiming rent assistance for caravan park fees from centrelink and that she, the park owner, refused to sign the required form so that the "greys" could submit that form for the subsity. Centerlinks reply was that she must by law sign the form, and that it was not her right to make such a judgment as to wether fraud was being committed or not. Does this mean that such subsitys are legal, or was this centerlink directive contrived to entrap the "Greys" . Comments would be appreciated.
Hi Bob, Re. your question about rent assistance. The wife , Heather and myself are in a similar situation to yourself , ie.selling up and going on the road . We went into Centrelink with a few questions about what we needed to tell them , if anything !!, before and while travelling . The person who we were seeing actually brought up the possibility of us getting rent assist , and provided us with the relevant Centrelink documentation on the subject . Hope this helps and good luck , see you on the road . Ed & Heather
Hi Bob., My wife and I are into our second stint of full time travelling and have no house. We have found that as long as your are fair dinkum with Centrelink, there is no problems in receiving rent assistance. This is a right you have, in our case, as an age pensioner.All we do is ring Centre link when you go into a park, get some rent certificate forms and post paid Centre link envelopes from an centre link office before departure and after notifying them by phone of your location and address send off a completed rent certificate. There seems to be a lot of wasted paperwork as you are sent out notification of changes to pension each time you change parks and also new rent cetificate forms. Because of all this paperwork, we only claim for 1 weeks stay or more and not for a day here or a few days there, even though it is permissable. Again being trufull with them is not frauding the system and you are not looking over your shoulder with a feeling of guilt. Hope this helps you. Kevin and Naomi Condie.
Hi there Bob, hubby and I are both on the age pension and get our rent assistant form signed and submitted at every town we stop in!
All the parks so far have no problem with signing!
You wont get an answer from Bob he hasn't been on the forum since 2007 and Kevin also has not been on the forum since 2007 , I think they are still on the line at centrelink office somewhere .
None of the 2006/2007 respondents have been on line since 2013. However it does show that some of the new members do go back through the old threads for information and to see what goes on.
This can be a timely reminder to those without a permanent residence and are living in their vans that rent assistance is available to pensioners where they pay site fees in caravan parks or manufactured homes villages.
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PeterD Nissan Navara D23 diesel auto, Spaceland pop-top Retired radio and electronics technician. NSW Central Coast.
