THINKING ABOUT MOVING TO A RETIREMENT VILLAGE?

Tom

I was disappointed to read about Consumer NZ’s call for “an urgent review of retirement village consumer protection” because I had always considered it to be a sensible organisation.

My wife Rosy and I moved into the Ranfurly retirement village in Three

Kings, Auckland, two years ago and it is very clear to us that the kind of examples being cited by Consumer or by the Retirement Village Residents Association (RVRA) are far from typical.

I’d go as far as to say that using obscure cases as scare tactics is a form of elder abuse in itself. It concerns us that this scaremongering may worry and unsettle some people living in retirement villages and their families or even deter elderly people from making the move into one.

My background is in the defence force and the education sector, so when we started to think about moving to a retirement village, my first question was “which one?” and I drew up a detailed list of what we needed from a village.

There are over 100 retirement villages in Auckland and we went to see most of them. Our list included being on a main supply route, with access to the airport, good public transport, a pharmacy and health care.

We did lots of research - we found the Retirement Villages Association (RVA) website very informative. We knew it was what we wanted and that we had to consult a solicitor before we signed our occupation right agreement (ORA). We knew exactly what we were getting into and that we had a guarantee that 70 per cent of the capital that we paid for our ORA would eventually be returned to our children as our legacy to them.

Of course, real estate values go up - or down - but it comes down to the question of “how much is enough?” I think what is often overlooked is the question of what is most important to you and your children, leaving them the maximum amount of money or maximising your quality of life for however long that might be?

We pay weekly fees but we know they won’t go up more than the Consumer Price Index (CPI). We don’t pay rates, or insurance or for a gardener or painter or to get the lawns mowed. If anything goes wrong in our home, maintenance people come in swiftly to fix it and that’s all included.

From our apartment, we have views to One Tree Hill and Manukau Harbour. We like the security –not just physical security but the security of knowing that we can live the way we want to for the time we have left, however long that may be.

There is one aspect our research didn’t prepare us for and that’s how much we would use and enjoy the facilities here. To name just some, there is a bar and restaurant - we had meals delivered to our door during COVID. Rosy does yoga several times a week. There’s a bowling green, a pool room, a 39seat movie theatre and even a fullyequipped workshop that’s as good as any school technology room. We also underestimated how much we would enjoy the village community. There is a really good mix of people here, in terms of ethnicity and interests. I believe the vast majority of our retirement village neighbours appreciate the life we have here as much as we do. One resident said to me recently, “Every morning I wake up and think that I’m on a cruise ship”.

From our experience of living in a retirement village, I do feel that complaints that I see flagged up by the RVRA are simply not typical.

My concern is that such a negative portrayal may give the impression that these are challenges you are likely to face in all retirement villages, but they should not all be covered by the same blanket.

The model isn’t perfect but not all villages are the same. I do not agree with lengthy settlements regarding ORA’s but it is also important to remember that probate takes a significant amount of time - I believe it’s currently four to six months. So, much of the delay often attributed to retirement village management is actually a legal delay due to probate. was the first village we looked at and we liked it immediately but we went on to look at a lot of others before we made a decision. higher level of care.

I certainly don’t agree with people still paying fees after they have stopped using the facility. However, requesting operators to stop charging weekly fees once a unit contract is terminated or the resident leaves is included among the voluntary reforms recently announced by the RVA.

My message to elderly people considering a move to a retirement village is do your due diligence, visit the village as many times as you want to, talk to the staff and residents and make absolutely sure that you fully understand all the terms in your ORA. But please don’t be deterred by ‘scare stories’ from considering a move that is very likely to considerably enhance your quality of life.

I have been dismayed by claims made recently by some retirement village residents supposedly unhappy with village life, and I feel compelled to speak up.

The impression this small number of residents give doesn’t tally with my experiences, and a lot of my fellow village residents agree. The claims are also insulting to the many people like my wife and I who did our homework on village life and made an informed decision based on the facts.

Despite suggestions from some people who claim they speak on our behalf, we are living life on our terms.

We did our due diligence before we signed our occupational right agreement (ORA) - the village insisted on it. We went through everything with our solicitor and we knew exactly what we were signing up to and what the fees and conditions would be.

We like everything about living here - there isn’t anything we would change and other residents seem very happy here too. We like the fact that it is secure and all the maintenance is taken care of. I can sit and have a glass of wine and watch someone else mow the lawn.

Our family enjoy visiting us here and we like the fact that they don’t need to worry about us, we don’t want to be a burden to them.

Being on our village residents association, I’ve heard about the voluntary reforms the industry is rolling out.

That includes asking operators to stop charging weekly fees once a unit contract is terminated, paying interest on the money owed to a former resident if the unit is not resold within nine months and providing better support for residents wanting to move into another facility.

My wife and I moved into our home in the Acacia Cove retirement village four years ago and our only regret is not doing it sooner.

We had been living in a 440 square metre house in Clevedon set in 2.5 acres. We had been there for 14 years but we had a 15 year plan to eventually sell that, move to a retirement village, release the equity and live on the interest. We haven’t encountered any problems at all. We spent two years doing a lot of homework to find the right retirement village for us. This

There are 33 different things you can do in this village, if you want to get involved. It’s set up so that the residents plan events and activities, with a residents-appointed activity co-ordinator, so we choose what we want to do. We have regular social functions. I’m on the social committee and on our village’s residents’ association. There’s also a nine hole golf course just over the road, so we trundle our clubs over, play a round and then trundle back.

It’s very well run. There isn’t a care facility in the village but the management provides support to help people move if they need a

The reforms are reasonable, and while we don’t have any of those issues in our village, I can see how they would work well for other residents. There isn’t an aged care facility in our village, but there’s one over the road and the management help residents if they need to move.

Our advice to people considering moving to a retirement village would be to do your homework, as we did, to find the right village for you and do your homework.

I’d also say, make the move while you can make the most of retirement village life and make new friends. We have a great circle of friends here - we call them our “village family”. 