Accommodation Costs Arrears Grant

You may be able to get an Accommodation Costs Arrears Grant if you:

• have an accommodation agreement, e.g. with your landlord or head tenant
• have overdue accommodation costs you need to pay, e.g. rent, board or cabin hire, and
• may be evicted because you haven't paid your accommodation costs.

We'll also take into account other factors, such as:

• your situation
• if you can afford to keep paying accommodation costs once the arrears are paid
• if this is the best payment for you
• what other help is available to you.

There are also residency and income criteria you need to meet.

Residency criteria

You must be either:

• getting a main benefit, NZ Super or Veteran's Pension, or
• ordinarily resident in New Zealand and either:
  • a New Zealand citizen
  • have a residence class visa under the Immigration Act 2009
  • recognised as a refugee or protected person under the Immigration Act 2009, or
  • getting a Special Needs Grant because you came to New Zealand on a temporary visa to be with your New Zealand partner and your relationship ended due to domestic violence.

Income criteria

Getting an Accommodation Costs Arrears Grant also depends on:

• how much you and your partner earn
• any money or assets you and your partner have.

Income limits

If you're:	Weekly income (before tax) is less than:
Single	$1,325
Couple without children	$1,960
Couple with children	$2,288
Sole parent, 1 child	$1,807
Sole parent, 2+ children	$2,087

Asset limits

Your assets need to be under a certain limit. Assets include money in the bank, or things like a caravan or second property. They don't include the things you need for day-to-day living, eg, your home or your car.

If you're:	Your assets are worth less than:
Single	$8,100
Married, civil union or de facto couple (with or without children) or sole parent	$16,200

How much you get depends on the amount of accommodation costs you owe. The most you can get is 4 weeks accommodation costs and you'll need to pay it back.

You can only get this payment twice in 12 months, unless there's an exceptional situation outside your control, for example:

• you haven't been able to work, or earn your usual income, due to an unforeseen serious sickness or injury, or
• you're in a family violence situation.

Call us on 0800 559 009 

If you get NZ Super or Veteran's Pension, call Senior Services on 0800 552 002

We may need to book you an appointment either to come in and see us, or a phone appointment. We'll let you know if this is the case.

You'll need to provide proof of the amount of accommodation costs arrears. This could be a letter or notice showing how much overdue accommodation costs you need to pay, from either:

• your accommodation supplier, e.g. your landlord or head tenant
• the Disputes Tribunal
• a Court
• the Tenancy Tribunal, or
• Tenancy Services.

If you have a shared tenancy

If you share your tenancy with:

• your partner, you can apply for your portion and your partner's portion of the accommodation costs arrears. Or your partner can apply separately for their portion.
• someone else, you can only apply for your portion of the accommodation costs arrears. The other person will need to apply separately for their portion.

If your application’s approved, we’ll pay the accommodation costs arrears directly to the accommodation supplier.

We’ll check if they are already a supplier with us. If they’re not, we’ll ask them to register as a supplier by completing a ‘Supplier Registration Form’. This is so we can make the payment to them.