The Elephant In The Room Property Podcast | Inside Australian Real Estate Multi-Generational Living: Legal, Financial, and Practical Realities
Multi-generational living is becoming a more common response to the uncomfortable realities facing ageing parents and their adult children.
With traditional aged-care pathways increasingly expensive, emotionally fraught, and often poorly understood, families are weighing up alternatives — staying at home, moving into residential care, or reshaping the family home through shared living arrangements and granny flats.
In this episode, we look under the hood of multi-generational living to explore what’s actually involved. From legal ownership and estate outcomes to pension eligibility, Centrelink rules, and family dynamics, we unpack the decisions families are making — and the risks they often don’t see until they’re already committed.
Our guest, Adriana Care, is Managing Partner at Coutts Legal and works at the coalface with families navigating these choices under pressure. She’s seeing a clear shift among the so-called sandwich generation toward property-based solutions for ageing parents — raising complex questions around money, fairness, control, and what can go wrong when good intentions meet poor planning.
This episode isn’t about whether multi-generational living is right or wrong. It’s about understanding the legal, financial, and practical realities behind these decisions before they become permanent.
Episode Highlights
01:18 — Meet Adriana Care of Coutts Legal
02:08 — Is Aged Care Failing Modern Families?
03:47 — The Legal and Financial Risks Families Miss
05:25 — Why Families Choose Multi-Generational Living
15:31 — Retirement Living vs Staying at Home
20:50 — How Retirement Village Contracts Really Work
25:40 — What to Know Before Making a Family Move
28:10 — Inside Retirement Village Agreements
28:55 — Disclosure Documents Explained
29:40 — Rules and Regulations That Catch Families Out
30:52 — How Family Dynamics Shape Care Decisions
32:21 — Financial Elder Abuse: Legal Warning Signs
35:29 — Binding Financial Agreements Explained
37:46 — Pensions, Gifting, and Centrelink Rules
40:21 — Why Downsizing Isn’t Always the Answer
44:02 — Granny Flat Arrangements: Legal Traps
49:42 — A Real Case That Shows What Can Go Wrong
About the Guest
Adriana Care is the Managing Partner at Coutts Legal, where she specialises in aged care and elder law. She works closely with families navigating some of the most complex and emotionally charged decisions around ageing, care, and family living arrangements.
Adriana advises clients on the legal and financial realities of home care, residential aged care, granny flats, and multi-generational living, with particular expertise in Centrelink rules, pension eligibility, and intergenerational asset arrangements. Working at the coalface, she sees first-hand how well-intentioned plans can unravel without clear structures, proper advice, and early conversations — especially for the sandwich generation balancing parents, children, and property decisions at the same time.
Connect with Adriana
Resources
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See you on the inside,
Veronica & Chris