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The Retirement Village Residents Association (Inc)
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25February 2010:

The Retirement Villages Regulation 2009 as tabled in Parliament was debated in the Legislative Council with the result that Clause 5(1)(a) was removed on the motion of Catherine Cusack.
To view a transcript of the debate see:

Debate Part 1 and

Debate Part 2

There are also a number of comments on the RVRA web forum at:

Clause 5 (1)(a) - Capital Maintenance

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1st March 2010:

RETIREMENT VILLAGES ACT and REGULATION came into force.

To view and print a copy of the Regulation please follow this link:

Regulation 2009 for RV Act 1999 pdf file.

To view and print a copy of the Act please follow this link:

Retirement Villages Act 1999 pdf file.

           The pdf file requires Adobe Reader, available at: www.adobe.com

The RVRA representatives have been closely involved in discussion with the Minister's Office and The Office of Fair Trading regarding the Regulation to accompany the Retirement Village Amendment Bill 2008.

RVRA was acknowledged as one of the "main stakeholders" and its views were submitted to the Minister's Office and to the Office of Fair trading along with 700 other submissions from RVRA members and other residents. The representatives of the RVRA were also involved in joint meetings with the operator groups, the Retirement Village Association and Aged Care Services.

The views expressed in this document are being made following only a short period of time to study the final Regulation.

RVRA feels our views have been considered in the following main areas:

Clause 20 Limit on Contingencies
We are pleased that Clause 20 has been amended to be a figure of $100, and accept that to achieve this some specific items are allowed as part of a deficit that an operator can carry onto the following year.

Clause 26, Matters Not To Be Financed By Recurrent Charges
This section has made the situation clearer for residents in studying their village budgets.
     - The payroll tax provisions in Clause 26 are an improvement for residents who have not yet approved pay roll tax costs in their village.
     - Some "head office" costs and operator's travel costs are not allowed.
     - Marketing costs of vacant units are not able to be charged to recurrent charges.

Capital Maintenance
We welcome the removal of the percentage formulas as shown in the Draft Regulation in regards to Capital Maintenance.

However, RVRA has concerns in many areas of the Regulation:
Such concerns are listed below:

There are some sections still difficult to understand, and the problem as to who pays for what, will continue to remain a matter for CTTT hearings.

Capital Maintenance:
The draft was changed and now both internal and external painting seems to be 'maintenance' and therefore at residents' cost. This is inequitable. The residents in a lease village do not own the dwellings or the common areas of the village. RVRA do not feel progress has been made in achieving equity in this area of maintenance.

Clause 26, Matters Not To Be Financed By Recurrent Charges
We hope there will be no confusion in the interpretation of the section d (ii) (If residents have consented to the financing of payroll tax for the 2009-2010 year, but have not formally, or otherwise, consented to the continuance of that financing in future budgets.)
Also, where the operator has multiple villages, we trust it does not mean that an operator can then divide their total payroll tax liability amongst a reduced number of villages because of their previous agreement, and hence, a village may pay a greater share of the operator's liability than has been paid in the current year.

Further, regarding Management Charges, the definition in the Draft Regulation has been watered down, and more particularly the section "charges directly related to the administration of the village" has been removed. We believe this removal will lead to disputes and applications to the tribunal resulting in a great deal of stress to residents.

Section 18 Form of proposed annual budget
In Section 18 (2) on Page 13 / 14 RVRA submitted that this clause should read "An operator of a retirement village "MUST" use the model form of proposed annual budget". This is based on the expectation that the Operators must use The Model Schedule 4 to give Residents a better understanding of Line Items in the Budget, and we are concerned that this is not now the case in the final Regulation.

The Future
If we are to continue to fight for the recognition of our resident's rights to live with certainty and fairness in Retirement Villages, we need to be vigilant and bring to the notice of The Office of Fair Trading any situations where residents are treated unjustly.

All of the above points will need to be monitored carefully in the near future, and if necessary some further changes may need to be made to the Regulation, if it can be shown that residents are suffering an unfair and inequitable situation.

The Office of Fair Trading have information regarding the amended Act and Regulation at this link.

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On 3rd and 4th December 2008 the NSW Parliament voted on the Retirement Village Act Amendments 2008.

The Government moved 23 amendments, and in addition, the Liberal/National Coalition and The Greens had in excess of another 60 proposed amendments.

The Bill, after taking five years to get to the Legislative Council, was finally dealt with in the early hours of Thursday morning (4th December 2008).

The majority of the voting was 19 to 18 in favour of the Government. None of the Coalition or Greens' amendments were accepted.

Although the amendments we wanted to see adopted in the Bill were not accepted by the Government and its supporters, all was not lost. The controversial amendment on the 50/50 payment of Capital Replacement and Maintenance was changed by the Government after consultation with retirement village residents.

The RVRA has now established a Study Group to represent residents' interests by formulating and later submitting to the Office of Fair Trading, draft Regulations which will help in the administration of the new Retirement Villages Amendments Act 2008 when it is proclaimed.

After the publication of the Draft Regulation 2009 for the Amendment Bill, on the 7th October 2009, the Study Group worked through each clause to highlight areas of concern for residents in Retirement Villages and lodged a submission with the Minister and the Office of Fair Trading. Members of the RVRA Committee also had meetings with the Minister and OFT Policy Officers, along with the other stakeholders.

The final Regulation was gazetted on the 18th December 2009, for further comments see our News Break page.