What types of nominees are there?

There are 2 types of nominees:

A plan nominee can make decisions about parts of the preparation, management or changes to your plan, that you choose. They will receive notices from us relating to your plan, and the details of the notices we send to you. A correspondence nominee can make some decisions about your business with the NDIS, not including those for the plan nominee. We send notices about you or for you to a correspondence nominee and tell them when we contact you directly.

You can have either a plan nominee, a correspondence nominee, or you can have both.

You can have the same person as both your plan and correspondence nominee. Or you can have one person as your plan nominee and someone different as your correspondence nominee. We can also appoint more than one person as your plan nominee. For example, we could appoint 2 people as your plan nominees, each person being responsible for different decisions.

What is a plan nominee and what do they do?

A plan nominee can make decisions about:

  • planning – preparing or changing your plan
  • managing your plan funding – receiving and managing your funding and using your funding.

A plan nominee can be appointed to do either or both of these things.

You can have more than one plan nominee.  If you have 2 or more plan nominees they may each have different responsibilities. But only one can manage the funding in your plan. If you want to change or update who can manage the funding in your plan, you or your nominee can contact us. We will then make a decision about who manages the funding in your plan.

You can ask us to limit the things your plan nominee can do. For example, you might want to decide by yourself what goals you want to pursue with your NDIS plan, but you want your plan nominee to help you manage your funding.

We can also limit what plan nominees can and can’t do for you, depending on what decisions we need them to make for you.

When your plan nominee does something on your behalf we look at this as if you had done it yourself.

If you have a plan nominee appointed by us they can only do something on your behalf if they believe you’re not able to do it yourself. Learn more about the duties of a nominee.

Your nominee doesn’t have any criminal liability under the laws of the NDIS for:

  • anything you do or fail to do
  • anything the nominee does in good faith, in their role as your nominee.

However, an exception to this would be if your plan nominee refused or didn’t comply with a notice from us asking for a statement about the use of your funding. A nominee may be responsible for criminal offences under other laws in this case.

What is a correspondence nominee and what do they do?

A correspondence nominee is someone who can make some decisions for you about your business with the NDIS. But they can’t do anything or make decisions about:

  • preparing or changing your plan
  • managing the funding for supports in your plan.

If you need someone to make decisions for you about your plan, you may need a plan nominee.

A correspondence nominee can ask us for information about you, or for you. They can receive letters and notices from us about you, or for you.

When your correspondence nominee writes to us on your behalf, we treat this as if you had written to us yourself. When we send your correspondence nominee a piece of information, we treat this as if we’re sending it to you. 

Any notice we would normally give to you as a participant, we’ll give to your correspondence nominee. In most cases, we expect your nominee to respond to us if we ask for something to be done, or information given to us.

How long can your nominee be appointed for?

Your nominee can be appointed for a set period of time or indefinitely.

If the appointment is for a set period, we can arrange for your nominee’s role to end:

  • after a period of time, for example, after 6 months
  • when a certain event takes place, for example, when you turn a certain age, or your next plan reassessment.

Having a nominee appointed for a set period can be good when you’re building your decision-making skills. You may have supports included in your plan to build these skills. We’ll talk to you about the different help available for decision-making. We’ll also help you to change from having a nominee and representative decision-making, to supported decision- making when you’re ready.

A set period might also be best when:

  • we think we should review your need for a nominee after a period of time, for example, whenever we change your plan or at a check-in
  • we expect an appointed decision-maker, for example a guardian, will probably be appointed for you, and you’ll only need a nominee until then
  • the person you want as your nominee isn’t currently available and we need to appoint someone else as a nominee until that person becomes available
  • your nominee is a court-appointed or participant-appointed decision-maker, and we think their role as your NDIS nominee should end when their appointment as your decision-maker ends.

When we decide how long to appoint your nominee for, we must also consider:

  • what you want
  • the opinions of any carers who help you to make decisions and manage your day-to-day activities
  • the opinions of other people who support you.

If your nominee is appointed for a set period of time, we will write to you and your nominee before the nominee role ends.

This page current as of
27 October 2023
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