Retirement village not your average purchase contract

We spend a lot of time assisting people into retirement villages. People do, and should, buy for lifestyle rather than investment.

But they also need to understand that buying into a retirement village is very different to buying and selling a house.

Different retirement villages provide different ways of creating rights to reside in their properties. There are four main ways that retirement villages offer tenure to an incoming resident:

Leasehold

This is the most common way that retirement villages offer their properties to incoming residents.  The lease contract creates a right to reside for an extended period (usually 99 years although we are yet to see someone outlive their lease).

A lease is registered in the Titles Office. There is no stamp duty.  Sometimes there is capital gain, but not usually.

Licence

Less common than leasehold (at least in Queensland) a licence creates a right to reside but is not registered against the title deed.  There are additional protections provided under the Retirement Villages Act. Usually there is no capital gain.  There is no stamp duty.

Manufactured/relocatable homes

This model involves owning the house, but not the land. The owner pays a site rental to have a house on land owned by the operator. Because you own the home there is usually capital gain available.

Freehold

This is the way that people are used to owning property.  They buy the property (like buying a house) and can sell it at the end.  Usually they pay stamp duty.  Usually they get any capital gain. The title is registered in the Titles Office.

This is the traditional ownership method. It is more like buying a unit in an apartment building, and subject to a body corporate structure. It is, however, rare in the retirement village industry.

Whatever the ownership model, all retirement village contracts provide extensive rules in relation to occupation of the home in which you live. There are always ongoing fees while in the village.

There are usually significant fees payable at the end of the ownership period – called various names including exit fees, or deferred management fees.

Exit Fee percentages vary across the industry, and can be based on the incoming payment, or the resale figure.

Other exit payments, such as renovation costs, reinstatement costs, costs of sale, legal costs, and valuation fees vary from contract to contract, and operator to operator.

Retirement village contracts are always long and complex. Specialist advice should be sought before entering into a contract for any type of arrangement.

 Don Macpherson is an expert in all forms of retirement village contracts. Visit brisbaneelderlaw.com.au or sunshinecoastelderlaw.com.au call 1800 961 622.