Retiring to village life without fear

“Sweeping changes” will reportedly be made to Western Australia’s Retirement Villages Act to better protect the rights of village residents.

The recent announcement of proposed changes, made by WA’s Commerce Minister, Simon O’Brien, would include protecting residents from people engaging in “excessive or improper behaviour” and creating “better, quicker and cheaper” dispute resolution mechanisms.

The West Australian reported the state’s 16,000 retirement village residents would have greater rights and protection from “dodgy” village operators under the reforms to current legislation.

The proposed reforms would reportedly prohibit certain people from operating or managing a retirement village and the Commissioner for Consumer Protection would allegedly be given the power to appoint an administrator to manage a village if the wellbeing or financial security of residents was at risk.

Longer ‘cooling-off’ periods from contracts were also proposed to give residents the right to “appeal collectively” to the State Administrative Tribunal against excessive or unwarranted increases in recurrent charges.

Limits on the time that recurrent charges are required to be paid by non-owner residents after leaving the premises, and time restraints on when the lease can be “on-sold” were other proposals.

While the amended legislation is yet to be introduced, Mr O’Brien claimed the reform process would be “split into a two-piece legislation”, with the first Bill introduced to Parliament by the end of this year.

“People in retirement villages are meant to be enjoying their retirement, not long, drawn-out, expensive disputes,” he said, adding he wanted to “empower” the Commissioner for Consumer Protection to “intervene effectively”.

Council on the Ageing (COTA) WA chief executive, Ken Marston, told DPS News the legislative amendments were “eagerly awaited” by residents and prospective residents of retirement villages following the extended period of consultation and media reporting which has occurred over the past five years.

“While many retirement village operators are honest and working for the benefit of residents, we are concerned to ensure that the balance of power between operators and residents gives residents the opportunity to have their genuine concerns dealt with in a timely and effective way at low cost.

“Seniors are vulnerable and disadvantaged consumers and they need to be fully protected by law,” Mr Marston added.