Retirement village maintenance rules cause confusion for residents

Some elements of living in a retirement village can be confusing, especially when it comes to issues such as maintenance and repairs.

While many retirement villages clearly set out who is responsible for fixing or pay for repairs and maintenance, occasionally a case pops up that confuses everybody involved.

In the ACT, residents at a retirement village are up in arms after forking out thousands of dollars on maintenance and repairs – and they’re calling for more clarity on who is actually responsible for what.

The Canberra Times reports residents at Bellerive had to pay for repairs to water heaters and to have the village repainted.

Chairman of the residents committee at the Bellerive Retirement Village in Lyons Allan Wright told the publication the Act wasn’t clear about who should be paying for maintenance and repairs.

The operators of Bellerive also want some clarification, with different interpretations of the law by different villages adding to the confusion.

The ACT Government has set up an advisory group to find some solution to parts of the Act that are confusing residents and operators alike.

So, who is actually responsible for maintenance costs?

As you know, most villages charge monthly maintenance fees – and of course, these fees differ from village to village. According to the Canberra Times, the legislation in the ACT sets out that the owner of a village is responsible for all capital maintenance. However, they can choose to fund that maintenance from a capital works fund or recurrent-charges fund.

Of course, that legislation too differs from state to state.

The issue for residents and operators is there are different interpretations of what the Act actually says, and that means each village tends to do things differently.

A spokesperson for the justice directorate told the Canberra Times that during consultation in 2016, operators had “quite different interpretations” of who was responsible for capital maintenance and who should pay for it.

Do you live in a retirement village? Have you ever had to pay for maintenance, outside of your monthly fees/charges?