Intellectual disability and home ownership: barriers to examine
The Conversation: The forgotten 660,000 locked out of home ownership
By Piers Gooding · Originally published 7 June 2017
Original article
Imagine two people in their 30s, Lee and Sarah. Both want to acquire their first home. They’ve saved a deposit of A$70,000 each and want to buy the same type of apartment in the same block.
Lee is able to buy off the plan with a mortgage and receive a First Home Owner Grant. Sarah is not.
What’s the difference? Sarah could be any one of 660,000-plus Australians with an intellectual disability.
[Clickability update, October 2026: This population figure and the employment, group-home cost and waiting-list figures later in the article belong to the historical commentary. They have not been established as current measures.]
Barriers at every turn
People with intellectual disability face so many barriers to finding a home of their own that it’s hard to pick one.
And pay rates, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission, are “extraordinarily low”. In other words, a mortgage is largely off-limits.
For most, family support then becomes a precondition for acquiring a home.
But, if family earnings have been negatively affected by their supporting responsibilities, financial assistance may not be possible.
If funds are available, one option is to create a family trust. For Sarah, a family member could acquire the apartment and act as a guarantor on a mortgage. However, unlike Lee, Sarah couldn’t get the first home owner and stamp duty concessions, which are not available under a family trust arrangement.
[Clickability update, October 2026: The trust, rent assistance and home-owner concession examples are historical analysis, not confirmation of present eligibility. Check the relevant benefits and state or territory rules with qualified advice before acting. Services Australia explains Special Disability Trusts.]
Another option is for Sarah’s family to set up a “special disability trust”. This would enable her to have access to first home owner concessions, although that would require confirmation from the revenue office of the relevant state or territory.
Even then, opening a special disability trust is onerous. It requires specialist legal and accounting advice. Annual fees and reporting requirements would quickly outweigh any first home owner concessions. Further, the beneficiary can’t pay rent to the trust, which would otherwise serve as a proxy for servicing a mortgage.
A third option is to help Sarah buy a home in her own name. However, many people with intellectual disability are unlikely to reach the threshold of mental competency required under current law. The person may then need to be placed under guardianship or trusteeship.
[Clickability update, October 2026: Do not infer incapacity from intellectual disability. Consider the particular decision, available support and applicable law. Victorian guidance on supported financial decisions explains one jurisdiction’s options and their limits.]
This raises a host of human rights concerns and has the potential to further disempower the person. First home owner concessions may be available to guardians on the person’s behalf, depending on the state or territory. But, again, discovering this information tends to require specialised legal advice.
Victoria has the unusual option of appointing “supportive attorneys”. The supporter doesn’t take over decision-making, but instead helps the person by gathering information. This can be a way to avoid removing legal capacity. Yet, it appears, supportive attorneys cannot assist with the acquisition of property.
[Clickability update, October 2026: Current Victorian guidance excludes significant property transactions from supportive attorney powers. Do not extend that rule to every jurisdiction or every form of decision support. Read the Victorian guidance.]
In short, all options come at a significant cost to the person or their family.
The one measure that is possibly useful for Sarah – claiming rent assistance for a property owned by a family trust – appears to exist by accident rather than design.
Unequal and a waste of taxpayer dollars
The lack of support for acquiring a home drives people with intellectual disability into group homes, either state-run or for-profit.
While these facilities may be acceptable for some, for many they perpetuate what Gerard Goggin and Christopher Newell describe as “social apartheid”. They also make people vulnerable to abuse and marginalisation.. Nowhere is this more evident than on the ABC’s Four Corners report this week.
Group homes are also expensive. In New South Wales, the average total cost to house a group-home resident, according to the Social Policy Research Centre, is $137,000 per year. That is $2,634 per week.
Ask most people with intellectual disability and their families to suggest better ways to spend $137,000 per year, and I’m sure they’ll have suggestions for wiser public spending.
Current mindsets are fixated on congregate-care models, such as group homes, as well as highly professionalised models that cost enormous amounts.
Social housing is another option, but Sarah would have to join the nearly 200,000 Australians on a waiting list. Even if she did manage to get a home this way, it is questionable whether being congregated with other disadvantaged groups will improve her chances of social inclusion.
As a starting point, state and federal governments could easily provide clear information about the various options available to people with intellectual disabilities who wish to acquire a home. People shouldn’t need law degrees to know their options.
Procedural equality could be improved by giving access to first home owner concessions to people with a disability who acquire a home through a family trust. For those needing funds for a mortgage, government-subsidised co-ownership schemes could be a great help.
These solutions should not replace efforts to improve employment rates, access to mortgages and all the typical pathways to home ownership. To help open up these pathways, people with intellectual disability would need to be able to buy a home with support and safeguards.
Funds should be re-invested from congregate care to the ongoing costs of supporting people with an intellectual disability to live in their own home.
Housing policy has tended to overlook home ownership for people with intellectual disability, which suggests the “soft bigotry of low expectations” is at play.
Barriers to housing for people with intellectual disability don’t seem to have been driven by malice. Instead, these barriers emerged from countless decisions not to afford them equal opportunities. Each barrier on its own seems unfortunate; together they appear tantamount to neglect and discrimination.
Keep ownership questions connected to your own decisions
Ask for information in a format you understand and identify the assistance you want with comparing options. Separate the home you want from assumptions about what someone with your diagnosis can decide. A housing story or commentary cannot determine your legal capacity or mortgage eligibility.
Seek advice about the actual transaction and jurisdiction. Supported decision-making guidance can help frame questions, but it does not replace advice about buying property.
Check the whole arrangement before choosing a trust or ownership structure
With the person involved, ask qualified advisers about control, costs, reporting, benefits and what happens when family circumstances change. Special Disability Trust information explains a specific arrangement with eligibility conditions; it is not a general recommendation for every family.
Do not treat potential concessions as enough to choose a structure. Confirm the relevant rules and ongoing obligations before committing money.
Questions readers ask
Does intellectual disability automatically establish incapacity?
No. Consider the particular decision, support and applicable law. Official guidance
Is a Special Disability Trust suitable for every family?
No. It has specific conditions and requires consideration of individual circumstances. Official guidance
Find home and living services to explore alongside your housing advice
Describe your disability-related housing and assistance needs through Clickability. Compare reviewed and rated provider profiles while obtaining separate qualified advice on ownership and finances.
