11:29a.m. 3rd December 2008

| By Bill Hoffman

A retirement village has pursued a claim for $140 from a resident to repair a hot water system to the Supreme Court and a woman who was charged $9900 for one extra day it was claimed she spent in another village are examples of the growing divide between residents and owners.

Solicitor David Wise, who has increasingly specialised in advocacy for residents with disputes with retirement villages, said it was essential that the Retirement Villages Act be clarified and that village contracts be simplified and standardised.

Mr Wise works closely with the Association of Residents of Queensland Retirement Villages to help protect the interests of the residents in these cases, and others like them.

The battle over the $140 to replace corroded elements in hot water systems owned by the operator of a Caboolture retirement village is now awaiting decision in the Supreme Court.

Mr Wise estimates the retirement village, which has been backed by the industry’s peak body Aged Care Queensland, has spent $50,000 in legal fees already.

Joan Saunders has been battling for three years to win back $9900 in exit fees for allegedly staying one day more than two years in Bellcarra Retirement Village in Caloundra.

Ms Saunders incurred a full year’s exit fee for allegedly staying one day into a third year at the village.

Ms Saunders had wanted out because the costs of staying were sending her broke.

She paid $160,000 to become Bellcarra’s second resident but quickly became disillusioned with increasing costs that eroded her pension to the point it was too expensive to stay.

Mr Wise said that was a position that many retirees found themselves in but they became trapped because exit fees made it so costly to leave that they would not be able to afford anywhere else to live.

Residents were, as a consequence, powerless.

“A threat to leave a village is empty because the operator profits when a resident leaves, so residents have almost no bargaining power,’’ Mr Wise said.