Reforms called for by Retirement Living Residents
"On the 1st May, a group of 140 residents of retirement villages, residential villages, caravan parks and
independent living units came together at a Retirement Housing Forum at Victoria University to ensure the
recommendations from the recently released Parliamentary Inquiry are acted upon urgently to address
serious concerns.
The forum was supported by Housing for the Aged Action Group, Consumer Action Law Centre, Residents
of Retirement Villages Victoria and Council on the Ageing as part of an ongoing collaboration on issues
facing residents of retirement housing.
Fiona York, co-manager from Housing for the Aged Action Group, said “The forum was a great opportunity
for people to work together on a strategy to ensure that the Inquiry recommendations are adopted by
Parliament”. Parliament has six months to respond to the Inquiry recommendations, which were released
last month.
The group were addressed by experts in the field, Katherine Temple from Consumer Action Law Centre,
Rhonda Held from Council on the Ageing, Lawrie Robertson from Residents of Retirement Villages Victoria
and Fiona York from Housing for the Aged Action Group.
After much discussion, the residents group identified the top five areas for urgent action. These are:
• An alternative dispute resolution process, such as a Retirement Housing Ombudsman
• Appropriate training for managers of retirement housing
• A process of accreditation for that all retirement housing providers
• A review of the Retirement Villages Act 1986
• Clarification of deferred management fees and clearer contracts
Fiona York (HAAG) noted, “We know from our years of action that we are more powerful when we work
together, and it was great to see so many people attend to express their concerns, prioritise them and plan
for the best way to influence change to improve the lives of residents of retirement housing”.
The group hopes that the Government will act swiftly to make the reforms necessary to make living in
retirement housing a safe and secure option for all older Victorians.
For more information contact HAAG, 9654 7389"
We know that HAAG has a much more disadvantaged cohort of residential tenancy people, the relevant acts need to be greatly strengthened by a specialist group which should include the residential tenancy Union. That organisation has excellent resources but is drowning in complaints. They have by far the most valuable experience. The offending landlords are immensely diverse group some of who are just ignorant and others who deliberately gouge the most vulnerable residents.
ReplyDeleteRetirement village residents covered by the Victorian act are at the opposite end of the social scale and they are being systemically misled and exploited by the definitions in the retirement village act producing contracts that cannot be costed until the resident terminates into a nursing home or dies. That is plain deception
The two sets of problems need to be separated for simplicity and to expedite the separate legislative reviews to help reduce the legislative deficiencies.
It is very disappointing to read the last paragraph of page 28 of the LSIC recommendations "the committee believes that the retirement village act 1986 currently strikes the right balance between consumer protection and the retirement village sectors ability to innovate and grow " there is only 5% take-up of the demographic into retirement villages, whereas in the United States the take-up rate is 15%. Of course there they have translucent residential tenancy contracts with conventional rents. That makes for a much more dynamic and competitive industry where customers know what it costs them to live in a retirement village.
Equally disappointing was to hear one of the panel at the meeting says that they could not consider some actions because of "pushback"! There will always be pushback from the management of retirement villages who are motivated primarily by incentive compensation schemes based on profitability.