Support at Home and Legal Capacity: What Families Need to Know

What is Support at Home?

Support at Home funds services designed to help an older person live safely and independently at home. It replaced the Home Care Packages Program and Short-Term Restorative Care Programme on 1 November 2025. The Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) remains in operation and is expected to transition to Support at Home no earlier than 1 July 2027. Services can include:

• domestic assistance and social support;
• personal care;
• nursing and allied health;
• respite;
• home modifications and assistive technology; and
• end-of-life care in the home.

Support at Home is administered by the Commonwealth. It is not a Victorian program, but the decision-making capacity and attorney rules that apply when a Victorian resident signs documents about it are governed by Victorian law.

The service agreement

Before services commence, the participant and registered provider must enter into a service agreement. The participant will ordinarily sign the agreement. If the participant is unable to sign but can make and communicate the decision, the provider may document the participant's agreement in another appropriate form. If the participant cannot make the decision, an active appointed decision-maker must have authority covering the relevant personal, financial or legal matters.

An inability physically to sign does not, by itself, mean the participant lacks decision-making capacity. Providers will often have a preferred signing pathway. That preference does not override Victorian law. A family member cannot sign merely because they are a relative or an informal carer — they need a legal appointment whose authority is active and covers the relevant matter.

Registered supporters and appointed decision-makers

Under the Aged Care Act 2024, an older person may have one or more registered supporters who assist them to obtain information and make or communicate their own decisions. Being a registered supporter does not, by itself, authorise the supporter to make decisions for the older person.

Some registered supporters also hold separate legal authority as an active appointed decision-maker — for example, under an enduring power of attorney or a VCAT order. They may make decisions only within the scope of that active authority.

What decision-making capacity means here

Decision-making capacity in Victoria is decision-specific and time-specific. For a Support at Home service agreement, the participant needs to be able to:

• understand the information relevant to the decision and the effect of the decision;
• retain that information to the extent necessary;
• use or weigh that information as part of the decision-making process; and
• communicate the decision in some way.

Decision-making capacity can fluctuate — including with dementia, delirium after a hospital admission or medication changes. A person who lacks capacity on one day may have capacity on another. Where capacity is genuinely in doubt, a treating doctor or geriatrician's opinion is usually the starting point.

Enduring powers of attorney and Support at Home

A Support at Home arrangement can involve both personal and financial decisions. Choosing the provider and services may involve personal matters, while entering contractual commitments and paying contributions may involve financial and legal matters. The enduring power of attorney under the Powers of Attorney Act 2014 (Vic) must be active and must confer authority covering the particular decision being made.

Attorneys must act honestly, with reasonable care and diligence, in accordance with the principal's will and preferences so far as those are known, and only for the principal's benefit. Attorneys cannot use their role to override a decision the principal has capacity to make.

A supportive attorney may help a participant understand the agreement, communicate the participant's own decision and take authorised steps to give effect to it. A supportive attorney does not make the decision for a participant who lacks capacity.

Medical treatment decisions are governed separately by the Medical Treatment Planning and Decisions Act 2016 (Vic). A medical treatment decision maker has authority only in relation to medical treatment decisions when the person lacks capacity for that decision. Holding that role does not, by itself, authorise the person to enter the broader Support at Home service agreement.

What if there is no attorney and capacity is lost?

This is a common problem. Where nobody has legal authority to sign, families may need to apply to VCAT under the Guardianship and Administration Act 2019 (Vic). VCAT can appoint:

• an administrator for financial decisions; and/or
• a guardian for personal and lifestyle decisions.

VCAT applications take time to prepare, list and decide. Where an urgent commencement of services or hospital discharge is looming, this delay can be difficult. It is better addressed by appointing an enduring attorney years earlier, while capacity is intact.

Contributions

Support at Home participants may be required to contribute towards the cost of particular services. The contribution rate depends on the participant's income and assets and the type and cost of service received. Clinical supports are fully government-funded. Independence and everyday-living services may attract participant contributions, although personal care will become fully government-funded from 1 October 2026.

Special no-worse-off arrangements apply to people who were receiving or approved for a Home Care Package on or before 12 September 2024. Services Australia determines the applicable contribution rate. Legal advice is about who has authority to sign, what the agreement says and how the arrangement interacts with the person's Will, powers of attorney and estate. It is not a substitute for advice from Services Australia or an aged-care financial adviser on the numbers.

Support at Home vs residential aged care vs retirement villages

The three regimes are distinct. See our comparison guide, retirement village vs residential aged care in Victoria, for a detailed side-by-side. In outline:

• Support at Home — Commonwealth-funded services delivered in the person's own home. Governed by the Aged Care Act 2024 (Cth).
• Residential aged care — Commonwealth-regulated care delivered in an approved facility, with Resident and Accommodation Agreements and RAD/DAP payments. See our guide to powers of attorney for aged care decisions.
• Retirement villages — Victorian-regulated residential communities under the Retirement Villages Act 1986 (Vic). Not aged care.

Family conflict — how to reduce it

Support at Home decisions frequently involve adult children with different views about the older person's best interests, their finances and their preferences. The steps that reduce conflict are generally the same:

• ensure enduring powers of attorney are in place while capacity is intact;
• document the older person's wishes in the enduring power of attorney where appropriate, an advance care directive for medical-treatment preferences, care-planning documents and clear contemporaneous notes (a Will may remain relevant to estate planning but is not the principal document for recording care or lifestyle decisions during life);
• keep other family informed about material decisions and financial arrangements;
• keep records — service agreements, invoices, transactions on the older person's behalf; and
• obtain independent legal and aged care advice when arrangements are being set up or changed.

Where disagreement has already turned into suspected misuse of the older person's assets or an attorney's authority, see our guide to elder financial abuse in Victoria.

How we help

Our powers of attorney and elder law team advises older people, their attorneys and family members on the legal side of Support at Home arrangements — reviewing appointment documents, advising on capacity issues, reviewing service agreements and preparing VCAT applications where they are needed. We work alongside aged care advisers and accountants on the financial questions.

Frequently Asked Questions