Winning a prize home is better than the internet says. Two of the warnings are myths.

Do you pay tax if you win a house in a raffle?

Not on the prize itself. The Australian Taxation Office's Prizes and awards page, last updated 8 June 2026, puts it in one sentence: "However, you don't need to declare prizes won in ordinary lotteries such as lotto draws and raffles."¹ Its companion page, Amounts you do not include as income, updated the same day, lists "prizes you won in ordinary lotteries, such as lotto draws and raffles" among the amounts that are not income.²

A charity prize home is a raffle prize. That is what these draws are: art unions and charity lotteries, licensed as such, selling numbered tickets for a drawn prize.

There is an older document that says the same thing about capital gains. Taxation Ruling IT 2584, at paragraph 2, states that "Winnings from betting, a lottery or other form of gambling or a game with prizes are generally assets for the purposes of Part IIIA. However, subsection 160ZB(2) provides that a capital gain shall not be taken to have accrued to a taxpayer by reason of the taxpayer having received such winnings." It goes on: "Raffle prizes are considered to be winnings for the purposes of subsections 160ZB(2) and 160ZB(3)."³

We cite that one as history rather than as current law. It refers to provisions of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 that have since been repealed, and the current ATO pages above are what a reader should rely on. We are not accountants and this is not tax advice: what happens after the win, including anything you do with the house later, depends on your own circumstances, and the ATO is the place to check that rather than us. Our tax and yield page works through the Australian side in more detail.

Do you pay stamp duty on a prize home?

This is the question where the answer is genuinely good news, and where it varies by operator, so it is worth reading the row for the draw you are actually in.

Two of the operators we track treat the transfer as part of the prize and itemise the cost. Endeavour Lotteries lists "legal fees and transfer $6,700" as a component of the draw 469 prize, and lists "Free transfer of title" among the inclusions.⁴ yourtown itemises "Transfer Fees - $760" as a component of its Noosa prize.⁵

Dream Home Art Union says the reverse, in plain terms. Clause 70 of its general terms: "we will not be liable to you for any financial consequences (including but not limited to any taxation liability (such as land tax or transfer duty), rates and/ or levies that may accrue to you".⁶ It does cover some running costs, at clause 53: "We will pay council rates, water and body corporate fees relating to a Prize Home for the first 12 months following the date of the Draw, excluding any water consumption fees, additional government invoked levies, or any special levies initiated by a body corporate."⁶

Deaf Lottery's current first prize is cash and gold to buy or build with, rather than a house transferred to the winner, so the question does not arise in the same form.⁷ Mater's terms could not be reached from here, which is stated as such in the table below rather than guessed at.

What none of them do is tell you what duty would be if it were payable. Duty is assessed by the revenue office of the state the property sits in, on rules that differ between states, and that is a question for that office or a conveyancer rather than for this page.

Can you take the cash instead?

Not on the terms we could read, and the number that circulates is not in any of them.

The claim repeated across affiliate and comparison sites is that a prize home winner can elect a cash payout worth about seventy to eighty per cent of the appraised value. We looked for it in four sets of current terms and could not find it, or any figure like it, in any of them. It is not a rule any of these operators publishes.

What the terms do contain is narrower and points the other way. Endeavour's clause 18 gives the operator, not the winner, the right to swap: "Endeavour Foundation reserves the right to substitute the nominated prize with another prize of the same value in its absolute discretion and subject to any direction of the relevant authority", and only where it cannot provide the prize or the winner cannot legally receive it.⁴ Same value, operator's discretion, not the winner's election.

yourtown does substitute gold bullion, but for particular winners rather than as a general option: "Victorian winners will receive Gold Bullion to the same value due to State Gaming legislation", and "International winners will receive Gold Bullion to the same value in lieu of the above listed prize."⁵ Again, same value.

Deaf Lottery is the exception among these five, and it is by design rather than by substitution: its first prize is chosen by the winner from vehicles, travel, construction and renovation, with up to $950,000 in gold bullion and up to $20,000 in cash for the balance.⁷ That is the product, not an alternative to it.

Do you have to live in it before you can sell?

No such requirement appears in any of the four sets of terms we could read.

The claim that a winner must occupy the house for twelve to twenty four months before selling is widespread in affiliate content. It is not in Dream Home's general terms, not in its draw 434 terms, not in Endeavour's draw 469 terms, not on yourtown's Noosa draw page and not in Deaf Lottery's draw 232 terms. Four documents, no holding period.

What the terms do set are handover mechanics, which is a different thing. Dream Home's draw 434 terms require prizes to be collected or delivered within one month after the draw unless otherwise agreed.⁸ Endeavour's clause 5 says winners "may be required by Endeavour Foundation to travel to its Brisbane office to claim the Lottery prize and effect handover of the prize".⁴ Those are about getting the keys, not about keeping them.

There is a real constraint that gets confused with this one: you cannot sell a house before the title is in your name, and transferring title takes as long as a conveyance takes. That is not an operator rule and it is not a lock-up period. It is the same wait any buyer has.

What does it cost to own each year?

The same things any house costs, and the operators are candid that most of it becomes yours on day one.

Dream Home covers council rates, water and body corporate for the first twelve months after the draw, with the exclusions quoted above, and says explicitly that it is not liable for the winner's land tax.⁶ Endeavour bundles gold with its prize, which its own materials describe as being there to help with travel, rates and water.⁴ After that the bills are the winner's: rates, water, insurance, body corporate where there is one, maintenance, and land tax if the holding is large enough to reach the threshold in that state.

We are not going to print those thresholds. They differ by state, they move, and the state revenue office is the only place worth reading them from. The same goes for anything you do with the house afterwards: a later sale, or renting it out, has tax consequences that depend on your circumstances, and the ATO is where to check, not here. Our tax and yield page covers the Australian side of a windfall in more detail.

None of this is an operator failing. It is how owning Australian property works, and it applies to a house you win exactly as it applies to a house you buy. The difference is that you did not pay for the house.

What this does to the pages on this site

Nothing changes about how we show these draws. Our charity lotteries page lists each open draw with its prize, its ticket price, its closing date and the ticket ceiling from its own terms, and prints no odds from that ceiling, for reasons that page sets out.

What this article adds is the part that happens after the draw, which no card has room for. If the terms we quote here change when a draw cycles, this piece is dated and wired to a review date, so it goes stale loudly rather than quietly.

The straight version

The prize is not declared as income. Two operators pay the transfer costs and itemise them, one says plainly that it does not, one gives cash and gold instead of a house, and one we could not read.

You are not required to live in it, and you cannot take seventy per cent in cash, because neither of those rules exists in any terms we could find. What is real is that a house costs money to own from the day it is yours, and that what you do with it later is between you and the ATO.

Read the terms for the draw you are actually in. They are per draw, they are short, and every quote above came out of one.

References

1. Australian Taxation Office, Prizes and awards, last updated 8 June 2026, for the sentence that prizes won in ordinary lotteries and raffles do not need to be declared: ato.gov.au ↩
2. Australian Taxation Office, Amounts you do not include as income, last updated 8 June 2026, which lists lottery and raffle prizes among amounts that are not income. ↩
3. Taxation Ruling IT 2584, paragraph 2. Cited as history rather than as current law: it turns on subsections 160ZB(2) and 160ZB(3) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936, which have since been repealed. The current ATO pages at references 1 and 2 are what to rely on. ↩
4. Endeavour Lotteries, draw 469 terms and conditions, for the itemised legal fees and transfer, the free transfer of title, clause 5 on handover and clause 18 on substitution: endeavourlotteries.com.au ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
5. yourtown, Prize Home Draw 559 Noosa page, for the itemised transfer fees and the gold bullion substitution for Victorian and international winners: yourtownprizehomes.com.au ↩ ↩
6. Dream Home Art Union, general terms and conditions, clauses 53, 64, 65 and 70: dreamhomeartunion.com.au ↩ ↩ ↩
7. Deaf Lottery, draw 232 terms and conditions, for the composition of first prize: deaflottery.com.au ↩ ↩
8. Dream Home Art Union, draw 434 terms and conditions, for collection or delivery within one month of the draw: dreamhomeartunion.com.au ↩
9. Mater Lotteries. Its terms returned a 403 to us on 21 August 2026 and could not be read, so no cell in the table above describes them: materlotteries.com.au ↩