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      Family Allowance Agreement

      About Product

      The LYD Family Allowance Agreement formalises true financial help being provided by a member of a family or parents to their children and grandchildren.

      ► Provided under Strategist membership.

      ► The master document has been signed off by LY Legal and is congruent with Australian law.

      General Information

      Financial dependency is established under the ITAA 97; where a person provides a better standard of living to another person on a regular and continuing basis. Many parents provide for their adult children and the adult child’s family on an ad hoc basis.

      The Family Allowance Agreement formalises the relationship between the parties which may substantiate and evidence the matter of financial dependency.

      Benefits

      •  It is simple and easy to use and a matter to be discussed between parents and their adult children.
      •  It is not a loan but a true family allowance.
      •  The payments are monthly and continuous in order to establish true financial dependency.
      •  Can be made to one individual or a family.

        Frequently Asked Legal Questions

        What is the Family Allowance to be used by the Family for?

        The Provider provides a regular family allowance payment as detailed below for the purposes of looking after their Family for, amongst other things the following purposes:

        1. Paying for school fees;
        2. Buying clothes for all the Family;
        3. Providing funds for acquisition of food and services;
        4. Providing funds for any other purpose to enhance the life, experience and comfort level of all members of the Family.

        Do payments need to be regular?

        Any family allowance payments need to be regular, monthly and continuous. 

        How much is the monthly payment?

        The payment needs to be meaningful and not a token payment to show dependence.  The recipients must show that they relied on the payment to provide an enhanced standard of living.  If the child is already on significant income dependency cannot be established.

        How long does this document take to assemble?

        Depending on the complexity of the data, this document should take approximately 30-50 secs to assemble. If you experience timing outside of this please contact Support via the Surge app, alternatively please read this article for troubleshooting tips https://info.lightyeardocs.com.au/supportcentre/troubleshooting-longer-assembly-times-timeouts .

        Is this document a legal document?

        All master documents have been signed off by LY Legal lawyers. Tony Anamourlis of LY Legal advises that “at no time, due to inbuilt legal protection and security measures can a user change or amend a document on the LYD platform that has been signed off by a practicing solicitor. To do so would result in the user drafting a document of a legal nature and engaging in the provision of legal services. In addition, it would be a breach of copyright. In our opinion when completing the form fields through the LYD platform, users and their employees are merely carrying out an administrative task which is not the provision of legal advice.”

        However in some complex areas such as the insertion of a varied range of client instructions into a Will or other such documents the user must be mindful of the extent to which a document is being drafted by the user rather than merely the administrative task of completing a form where the relevant fields are inserted into the reviewed and signed  legal document provided by LY Legal.

        The above advice is born out of numerous cases dating back to Re Sanderson, Ex parte Law Institute of Victoria [1927] VLR 394, 397 where the Court held:

        “if a person does a thing usually done by a solicitor, and does it in such a way as to lead to the reasonable inference that he is a solicitor – if he combines professing to be a solicitor with action usually taken by a solicitor – I think he then does act as a solicitor.”

        Likewise in ACCC v Murray (2002) 121 FCR 428, 448 where Murray was building a franchise business that involved the legal writing and drafting of Wills from scratch based on the client’s personal circumstances.  The Court held that this process was legal work.

        Is the document easy to read?

        All LYD products are written in plain English and assessed for readability. If at any time you come across any errors, please contact support@lyd.com.au.

        What lawyers sign off on the LYD documents?

        All LYD documents are prepared and signed off by LY Legal.

        Are the LYD documents reviewed regularly?

        All LYD documents form part of the LYD internal review process. We review all documents at least annually or when required to do so due to changes in legislation. Further details of this process and a review schedule is include on this website.