Retirement questions Answered: from time to time, we will pick a question sent in by a reader and offer a response from personal finance writer Gill South. You can submit questions below.
I’ve learned a lot doing this column, so thanks is due to you, dear readers. The research behind today’s article hit me particularly hard because the realisation that the usefulness of my KiwiSaver could be contingent on the health of my partner.
As confronting as this might sound, here’s the question from Samantha* about her possible future financial support of partner Henry*:
“My partner is older than me, we have been together for many years, and we have both contributed to KiwiSaver. I am concerned that should either one of us require residential care, the other's KiwiSaver balance could be required to fund that care through property relationship legislation. This could easily leave one of us with no KiwiSaver when we need it. Seems unfair to me but how can we protect ourselves and each other in the long term?"
It’s a great question and applies to more Kiwis than we realise. We’ve been trained to believe that our KiwiSaver is really our responsibility and a little pot of money just for us alone. But it’s actually more complicated than that.
