Centrelink & Inheritance...anyone know how it works??

[Daffodil Mumma]

Little bit of back info....DH & I receive some FTB A & B. He works full time I work part time & DS gets CCB & CCR (hope Im getting the initials right lol)

So anyway, recently my MIL passed away ( but thats another story) so my DH and siblings are working thru the estate etc and it looks like a reasonable sum of money will be going to each child. My SIL instantly said......when you get your share hide it or spend it straight away, if centrelink finds out they will stop your payments!!!

Ok so SIL can tend towards drama queen lol but it did get me wondering, do I have to declare the money as "ïncome" and have my payments reduced or because its a "gift" does it not count??

Basically Im trying to figure out the best thing to do before we get it and how we should handle it!!

So has anyone else been in a similar situation??? With everything else going on I dont want to hold up the Centrelink phone lines for something like this until the money is closer if that makes sense.

[diannescruffy]

You will have to declare the money but I think it is declared as a gift, BG will let you know. When my father passed away, I was left with his house, no money so not too sure about receiving money. The house has not affected our payments at all. All the best.

Regards,
Dianne

[Glamourcide]

DH and I have been working through legal tangles for over 2 years now to sort out his inheritance from his late mother - we are at the 'any day now' stage and just waiting on our w*nk of a lawyer (who's already taken $60k in legal fees from the estate) to sort out the contract of sale so we can officially start paying off the house we inherited. As far as I know, the inheritance will not affect my Family Tax Benefit but I will have to wait and see what happens as I've also held off changing my details/letting them know my circumstances until things are actually settled.
Good luck, I'm sorry for your loss and I hope that the inheritance doesn't adversely affect your payments x

[toomanyshoes]

It all depends how much it is. Best to call them and ask.

[widdly]

i am on the PPS and have a very old great grandfather who I will inherit a very substantial sum of money from. From my understanding, centrelink will calculate how long I can live off the inheritance and not pay me PPS for that length of time. Luckily I have just gotten a new job, hopefully I will be full time by then, so I can use the inheritance to buy a house. Not sure if it effects FTB payments though

[briggsy's girl]

for ftb purposes, you need to check with your accountant on what portion (if any) is taxable. a lot of it will depend on what you're doing with the money - if you invest a large sum of money, it will earn interest, which is taxable, and will, in turn, impact your payments

[BeautifulMadness]

I know when my dad started taking momney out of his super...he gets a certian amount every may ( he started this in 2009) and he had to declare ( which is retarted)