Ringwood Retirement Living & Aged Care Lawyers

Retirement villages in Victoria are regulated under the Retirement Villages Act 1986 (Vic). Before signing, a prospective resident must be given a disclosure statement and a copy of the contract. Contracts vary widely — loan/licence, leasehold, unit trust, strata title — and the ingoing contribution, ongoing fees and departure fee formula are often the most important terms. Our retirement village contracts guide and Victorian retirement villages guide cover the concepts at a general level.

We review the specific contract and disclosure statement for a resident (and, usually, their adult children) before signing. We identify the total cost of moving in, the ongoing fees, the recurring liability after departure, the refurbishment obligations on exit and the deferred management or departure fee formula — and we translate the effect into plain numbers. A short review before signing avoids expensive misunderstandings later. See our retirement village agreement checklist for the questions we work through.

Entry into a residential aged care facility is documented in a Resident Agreement and an Accommodation Agreement under the Aged Care Act 1997 (Cth). The Accommodation Agreement records how the accommodation cost will be paid — as a Refundable Accommodation Deposit (RAD), a Daily Accommodation Payment (DAP) or a combination. The RAD is a large lump sum (often in the hundreds of thousands) refundable to the estate on departure, subject to permitted deductions.

We review the agreements from a legal perspective — the terms, the notice provisions, the security of the RAD, additional service arrangements, and interaction with the resident's estate plan and powers of attorney. We do not provide aged-care financial planning, means-tested fee calculations, Centrelink advice or tax advice; that work sits with financial planners and accountants, with whom we work alongside.

Very few residents move into a retirement village or aged care facility without their adult children involved in the decision. Where the resident retains capacity, we take instructions from the resident and involve family members with the resident's consent. Where capacity is in question, we advise on the interaction with an enduring power of attorney, on the appointed attorney's authority to sign accommodation documents, and on the record-keeping required to protect all concerned.

If capacity has already been lost and no enduring power of attorney is in place, we advise on VCAT guardianship and administration as a precondition to signing accommodation documents.

Exit from a retirement village is where most contracts prove more expensive than expected. Departure fees, refurbishment obligations, marketing costs, ongoing recurrent charges after departure and delay in payment of the exit entitlement are common friction points. Our leaving retirement village exit fees guide covers the key issues.

We advise departing residents and families on the exit entitlement calculation, on refurbishment disputes, on VCAT retirement village disputes, and on the position when a resident dies mid-contract (see our note on what happens when a retirement village resident dies). We also advise on aged-care refund disputes and on complaints to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission where appropriate.

A move into a retirement village or aged care facility is usually a good moment to review the resident's will, enduring power of attorney, medical treatment decision-maker appointment and superannuation death benefit nomination. The move often changes the asset mix (the family home is sold or leased), the composition of the estate on death (a large RAD refund replacing the home) and the exposure to family provision claims.

We co-ordinate the accommodation documents with the estate plan so that the executor's task on death is manageable and the resident's wishes are documented while capacity is not in doubt.