Trevor was referred to our service by the local crisis homelessness service Beyond Housing in December, after he had received an eviction notice due to the landlord wanting to sell. He had until 26 February to find housing, and wanted to move closer to his support networks and medical services in the Yarra Ranges.
In August 2022, the Residential Tenancies Commissioner and HAAG co-hosted a residential parks roundtable (the roundtable) to hear from residents in Victoria about their experiences of living in residential parks. Approximately 70 residents from residential parks across Victoria joined the meeting, which was co-chaired by the Commissioner and HAAG’s Executive Officer. Staff from HAAG, the Department of Justice and Community Safety, and the Office of the Commissioner for Senior Victorians assisted with note taking and facilitating breakout discussions.
The draft of proposed amendments to the Retirement Villages Act bill fails to address many concerns raised by and on behalf of residents, in particular around management standards and fairer fees. The bill allows the most exploitative and predatory operators to continue to operate according to ‘churn’ business models where they are incentivised to maintain high turnover rates by systematically pressuring residents to leave once their exit fees reach their maximum value. The bill abandons the concept of a rights-based framework in favour of vague unenforceable ‘principles’. Overall, the bill simply fails to address serious public concerns about exploitative business practices in the retirement village industry, much less the concerns expressed by the many residents who have made submissions to this review.
In August, HAAG and the Office of the Commissioner for Residential Tenancies co-hosted a roundtable for residential park residents. We wanted to bring residents from many different parks together to compare their experiences and see what is working and what isn’t for them, and what issues do they have in common.
Do you live in a residential park in Victoria? We want to hear from you! What needs to change to make residential parks work better for older renters? This will be an opportunity for the Commissioner for Residential Tenancies and other policy-makers to hear directly from residents about the good and bad in this type of housing.
Information session for all residents of retirement housing types including retirement villages, residential parks, lifestyle villages, rental villages, independent living units about the need for a specific, timely, free, accessible and binding dispute resolution service for all retirement housing residents, as well as other information on fair fees, management training and simplified contracting.
Jennie was referred to our Retirement Housing Advice Service, as she had had huge crowds of ants crawling into her unit for almost 12 months and the village where she lived had consistently been unresponsive to this pest infestation.
Cat’s family approached us some time ago, after she had moved to an aged care facility from a retirement village. Cat had moved to the retirement village in 2005, prior to the current regulations coming into force.
Across sectors, much of the legislation and policies that are meant to monitor or regulate the services provided to older people living in retirement housing options do not offer clear or adequate protections or enforcements. Given this, HAAG is in support of the Panel’s vision to provide consumers of Embedded (electricity) Networks equal protections, market access and treatment to on-market customers.
"There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort."