I've been out of work for the past 9 months got very behind in my mortgage and so now that I am at preservation age I took 25K from my superannuation and paid off the mortgage debt. Today I got the bad news that I am unlikely to be able to work for at least another 6 months. I have only 13K of superannuation left. I took the 25K in late March. Can I access the remainder of my super? When? Thanks Deb

Hi Deb, I can't comment on when you can access your Super, but most banks have some kind of hardship support for cases such as yours which means you may not need to access you Super & they may be able to provide some form of relief.

I just Googled a few & found them pretty easily:-

https://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/sustainability/initiatives-for-you/customers-financial-hardship/
https://www.nab.com.au/personal/help-and-guidance/financial-hardship
https://www.commbank.com.au/about-us/who-we-are/customer-commitment/financial-hardship.html
http://www.anz.com/about-us/corporate-sustainability/microsite/anz-financial-hardship/
https://www.suncorp.com.au/banking/help-support/financial-difficulty.html

Hopefully this helps.

It would have been better to place the funds in redraw so that you can access them if required. Its always a better option to have access to the money via redraw or an offset account rather than tying it up in bricks and mortar as you have found out.

You can still "pay off" your mortgage and have access to the surplus funds in case of emergencies.