Retirement bill on the right track, but more protection needed

Housing for the Aged Action Group (HAAG) calls the government’s Retirement Villages Act Amendments Bill, released after a five-year consultation period, a “mixed bag”.

It includes important improvements for residents but leaves some major areas of concern inadequately addressed.



Fiona York, Executive Officer, welcomed the introduction of standardized contracts to address the complexity and variety of contracts in retirement villages.



“For many years we have been calling for an end to ambiguous and confusing contracts, which have made it difficult for people to compare villages or understand their real costs. And so we welcome this reform,” she stated.



HAAG also welcomes the introduction of a mandatory Code of Conduct for retirement village operators, which sends a strong message to the industry.



“We have seen shocking mistreatment of our clients in retirement villages by unscrupulous operators, caused by a lack of adequate consumer protections and regulation. The mandatory Code of Conduct has the potential to provide stronger consumer protection and a better experience for residents.”



“We welcome the Bill’s stronger regulation of retirement village fees, but we are concerned it will allow some of the industry’s worst practices to continue. It doesn’t go far enough in regulating exit fees that can incentivize villages to ‘churn’ or evict residents for increased profits, and trap unhappy residents in villages that no longer suit them.”



The Bill also doesn’t do enough to protect security of tenure in retirement villages, allowing residents – who may have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars or more for their homes – to be evicted if they have committed ‘many’ minor contract breaches.



“The worst village operators we see use eviction threats to harass residents to manipulate exit payments and extract windfall profits. This is a practice that should be stamped out, but we are concerned that the Bill will allow this to continue.”



HAAG, alongside partners and residents of retirement villages, have also been calling for an Ombudsman to resolve disputes.

The introduction of a new alternative dispute resolution service within the Department of Government Services is a step in the right direction, and must provide a free and easily accessible service for residents, as well as the ability to make binding decisions on operators. HAAG says it looks forward to working with the Government to develop this new service.