Changing SIL Provider Without Moving House

Changing Your SIL Provider Without Losing Your Home

A family decides the support in their son’s house is no longer good enough. The staff change constantly, incidents are reported late, nobody has reviewed the roster in three years. They raise it, nothing improves, and they reach the obvious conclusion: change providers.

Then somebody says that if they change providers he will have to move out.

Sometimes that is true. More often it is not, and the difference turns on a question most residents have never been asked: who owns the house, and is it the same organisation that delivers the support?

The two arrangements that look like one

Supported independent living is funding for support. The dwelling is funded separately or not at all — a distinction our page on supported independent living in Sydney sets out in full. In practice that produces three situations, and which one you are in determines everything.

Situation one: different organisations. The dwelling is owned or head-leased by a specialist disability accommodation provider, a community housing organisation, a private investor or the family. The support comes from a separate company. This is the cleanest position: changing the support provider does not touch the housing, and the person stays where they are while a new provider takes over the roster.

Situation two: one organisation holds both. The same company owns or controls the dwelling and delivers the support. Changing the support provider means the housing provider is now being asked to host a competitor’s staff in its own property. Some will. Many will not, and their agreements are often written so they do not have to.

Situation three: no formal housing arrangement at all. The person lives in a house the provider controls on an informal basis, with nothing in writing about occupancy. This is the weakest position and it is more common than it should be.

Before anything else, establish which of the three applies. The answer is in the paperwork, and if you cannot find paperwork that answers it, that is itself the finding.

What to look for in the documents

Three documents matter, and they are frequently conflated.

The SIL service agreement. Covers the support: what is delivered, by whom, at what ratio, how it is claimed, notice periods, how to end it. This is the one you are terminating if you change provider. Our guide to reading a SIL service agreement goes through what should be in it.

The occupancy or tenancy document. Covers the right to live in the dwelling — a residential tenancy agreement, an occupancy agreement, an SDA residency agreement, or a boarding-house style arrangement. This is the one that determines whether somebody has to move.

The SDA service booking, where SDA is funded. The payment for the dwelling, which goes to the SDA provider.

The specific thing to find is whether the occupancy document makes the right to live there conditional on receiving support from a particular provider. If it does, changing provider triggers the end of the occupancy, and that is the clause doing the damage rather than any rule of the scheme. It is also a clause worth getting advice on, because tying housing to a service is exactly the arrangement the separation of SIL and SDA was designed to discourage.

Why separating them matters so much

The NDIS deliberately split the dwelling from the support, and the reason is choice and control. If losing your provider means losing your home, you cannot meaningfully complain about your provider. Everybody in the house knows it, including the staff, and it changes the atmosphere of the place.

This is the structural version of a problem that shows up in smaller ways throughout supported living — the same dynamic that makes who controls a resident’s money worth examining, and that makes the independence of decision-making arrangements worth checking, as covered in guardianship, consent and supported decision-making in NSW.

It is also why the regulatory position has tightened. Since 1 July 2026 SIL providers must be registered with the NDIS Commission for the new class 0138 – Assistance with supported independent living, which brings a certification audit, compliance with the core module of the NDIS Practice Standards and with a new supplementary SIL module. Delivering SIL without that registration is, in the Commission’s words, a serious offence, carrying a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment, 120 penalty units, or both. Among other things, that means a provider you are moving to must hold it — and it is a fair question to ask before you commit.

The process, step by step

1. Read the two agreements and identify the dependency. Is the right to live there tied to the support provider? Write down the clause number. Everything else follows from the answer.
2. Raise the problem formally with the current provider first. In writing, with specifics and dates. Partly because it sometimes works, and partly because a documented complaint is useful if the matter escalates. A registered provider must have a complaints process and must tell you about the external route to the NDIS Commission.
3. Talk to the housing provider separately, if there is one. Their interest is an occupied dwelling and a reliable support arrangement. They are often more willing to accept a new support provider than families assume, and they may have views on who works well in that property.
4. Find the new provider before you give notice. Confirm they hold 0138 registration, can staff that specific address, and hold the competencies the household needs. A provider who cannot realistically roster that suburb is not a solution.
5. Get the new provider’s written proposal. Roster of care draft, ratio, overnight arrangement, named transition plan, and the household cost estimate. Compare it with what exists rather than with how it feels.
6. Check the notice period and serve notice properly. Typically between two and eight weeks in SIL agreements. Serve it in the form the agreement requires, in writing, keeping a copy.
7. Insist on a real handover. Support plans, behaviour support plan, mealtime management plan, medication charts, night plan, incident history, equipment manuals and maintenance records. Continuity of information is the thing that actually protects somebody through a transition.
8. Update the service bookings and plan management. The NDIA, plan manager or support coordinator needs to redirect the SIL service booking. Do not let this lag the staffing change.
9. Keep the first fortnight over-supported. New staff, same house, same housemates. The risk in a provider change is not the paperwork, it is the three weeks where nobody knows the routines.

What happens to the housemates

This is the part people forget, and it is a genuine constraint rather than an excuse.

A shared house runs one roster. If one resident changes support provider, the house cannot easily have two providers delivering overlapping shifts in the same kitchen — it is possible, it happens, and it is awkward. More often, a provider change in a shared house is a decision the household makes together, or it becomes a decision about whether the one dissatisfied person moves.

Shared supports are also apportioned between residents: in the NDIA’s roster of care framework, handover time is divided by the number of residents at the relevant ratio. One person leaving changes everybody’s share. So the other families have a legitimate interest in the conversation, and starting with them rather than around them tends to go better.

If a household is unanimous, a provider change is far more achievable than any single family believes. Collective dissatisfaction is also much harder for a provider to characterise as a personality clash.

When moving really is unavoidable

Sometimes the honest answer is that the person will have to move, and it is better to know early.

That happens where the occupancy is genuinely tied to the provider and the provider will not release it; where the dwelling is purpose-built stock the provider controls and no alternative support provider can operate in it; or where there is no occupancy document at all and the arrangement is entirely at the provider’s discretion.

In those cases the task changes from a provider change to a housing search, which is a slower and harder exercise — how SIL vacancies actually work in Sydney sets out how that market behaves. Do not give notice on a current arrangement until the alternative is in writing, however poor the current one is.

It is also worth getting advice. For a residential tenancy in New South Wales, a Tenants’ Advice and Advocacy Service can help; for occupancy agreements and SDA residency arrangements the position is more specialised, and a disability advocacy organisation or community legal centre is the right place to start. Nothing on this page is legal advice.

The safeguarding point worth making

Residents who believe they cannot complain do not complain, and a provider that benefits from that belief has very little incentive to correct it.

So the most useful thing a family can do is establish the real position early — ideally before signing anything, which is why this question belongs on the list at the first tour rather than at the first crisis. Ask it as a flat question: if we were ever unhappy with the support, could he stay in this house and have a different provider deliver it?

The answer, and the willingness to answer, tells you a great deal about the organisation you are dealing with.

If you want somebody to look at a current agreement with you and tell you plainly which of the three situations you are in, we will do that whether or not you end up with us. Supported independent living in Sydney sets out what we are registered for and what we put in writing.