Draft Commissioner’s Interpretation Statement on Charities’ provision of housing

Submission Date: 16 December 2025

This submission has been prepared by the Charities and Not-for-profits Committee of the Law Council of Australia’s Legal Practice Section. The Committee welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) in relation to the draft Commissioner’s Interpretation Statement on Charities’ provision of housing (CIS).

The Committee welcomes the draft update of this CIS and agrees that it substantially achieves its aims of:

• clarifying the ACNC’s approach to assessing poverty, distress and disadvantage in relation to the provision of housing by charities—however, we request some more clarity in the CIS as to when a housing organisation is eligible as a PBI given the focus of the CIS is on the relief of poverty, distress and disadvantage in relation to the provision of housing;
• providing guidance on tenant cohorts that are commonly prioritised for housing;
• updating home ownership guidance to make clear where the ACNC will accept that any private benefit is incidental or ancillary;
• providing more detailed guidance on how we assess benefits to third parties, including private and public investors; and
• provide new guidance on multi-party Special Purpose Vehicles for new and existing charities, including in relation to managing complex structures and governance risks.

The main areas in the CIS that we recommend be reviewed by the ACNC, and clarified, relate to the overlap in the CIS of the not-for-profit (NFP) meaning, private benefits and an independent non-charitable purpose versus an incidental purpose.

The Committee has made some comments in the CIS and also set out the explanations below. In summary:

• The CIS currently mixes the concepts of NPF, private benefit and independent, non-charitable purpose.
• The concept of NFP is about ensuring that all the assets and income of the charity are applied for its purposes and not distributed to its members in their capacity as members.
• Private benefits are benefits provided outside of the beneficiary class (or in excess of reasonable benefits to the beneficiary class).
• Providing private benefits may indicate an independent, non-charitable purpose if it is not incidental to the charitable purpose.

Last Updated on 17/12/2025

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