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Social Security Act 2018

Other provisions - Regulations

423: Regulations: accommodation supplement

You could also call this:

“Rules for getting help with housing costs”

You can get an accommodation supplement to help with your housing costs. The Governor-General can make rules about this supplement. These rules can decide:

  1. What assets you’re allowed to have and still get the supplement.
  2. What counts as cash assets and what doesn’t.
  3. How different areas of New Zealand are defined for this supplement.
  4. How much the basic rate of the supplement should be.
  5. How your income might reduce the amount of supplement you get.
  6. How the amount you get might be rounded up.

Some of these rules can start working on a date that’s different from when they were made.

When looking at your income, the rules treat your cash assets in a special way. If you’re in a relationship or a single parent, every $100 over $5,400 in cash is counted as $1 of weekly income. For everyone else, every $100 over $2,700 is counted as $1 of weekly income.

These rules are a type of law called secondary legislation. Some of these rules need to be confirmed by another law to keep working.

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This page was last updated on

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6783993.

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Part 8 Other provisions
Regulations

423Regulations: accommodation supplement

  1. The Governor-General may, by Order in Council, make regulations that, for the purposes of subpart 10 of Part 2 and Part 7 of Schedule 4,—

  2. set out the assets requirement (see section 65(1)(b)):
    1. exempt any item or kind of cash assets or any amount of cash assets from the definition of cash assets in section 68(2):
      1. define Area 1, Area 2, Area 3, and Area 4 (see the definitions of those terms in Schedule 2, and see also section 454(1)(a) (certain orders are confirmable instruments)):
        1. prescribe 1 or more base rates of accommodation supplement, and how each prescribed base rate is to be assessed:
          1. provide for required income-based reductions to the assessed base rate amount of accommodation supplement (including any circumstances when specified income may be disregarded):
            1. require MSD to round up (for example, to the nearest amount in complete single dollars, or in complete multiple dollar amounts) assessed amounts of accommodation supplement.

              1. Regulations made under subsection (1)(b) have effect in respect of any cash assets specified in the regulations on and after a date—

              2. specified in the regulations; and
                1. earlier than, the same as, or later than the date on which the regulations are made.

                  1. For the purposes of regulations made under subsection (1)(e), the following must be treated as $1 a week of income:

                  2. every $100 of cash assets over $5,400 held by—
                    1. a person who is in a relationship; or
                      1. a single person who has a dependent child or children; and
                      2. every $100 of cash assets over $2,700 held by any other person.

                        1. Regulations under this section—

                        2. are secondary legislation (see Part 3 of the Legislation Act 2019 for publication requirements); and
                          1. if they are made under subsection (1)(c), must be confirmed by an Act (see subpart 3 of Part 5 of the Legislation Act 2019).

                            Compare
                            Notes
                            • Section 423(4): inserted, on , by section 3 of the Secondary Legislation Act 2021 (2021 No 7).