Retirement Villages Amendment Act 2020
The Retirement Villages Amendment Act 2020 has introduced significant changes to exit entitlements, recurrent charges and has enhanced the rights and safeguards of registered interest holders.
Recognising that more than 60% of retirement village residents directly transition into aged care accommodation and that the average age of a person entering a retirement village is 75 and the average age of residents is 81 and more people will be moving into aged care accommodation, the Retirement Villages Amendment Act 2020 address the easing of the financing of the transition.
Most notably, the Act has amended the Retirement Villages Act 1999:
- to enable the Secretary of the Department of Customer Services to make an order requiring an operator to pay a resident the amount the resident will be entitled to once their residential premises are sold – the exit entitlement – in circumstances where the resident has moved out or intends to move out, and the premises have not yet been sold.
- To require an operator to pay part of the resident’s exit entitlement directly to an aged care facility in which the resident resides or proposes to reside as payment for accommodation in the facility, instead of paying the exit entitlement to the resident, in circumstances where the premises in the retirement village have not yet been sold.
- To provide that a former resident of residential premises in a retirement village is not required to pay recurrent charges to the operator of the retirement village once 42 days have passed since the former resident permanently vacated the premises.
The By Lawyers Retirement Villages (NSW) Guide has been updated accordingly. This guide is available within the Conveyancing (NSW) publication.