Capital improvement of retirement villages

As the retirement village operator, you are responsible for the cost of the village's capital improvements, including those to communal facilities.

If a resident requests a capital improvement to their unit and you agree, the resident pays for the improvement.

If residents vote to make a capital improvement and you agree, everyone who is a resident when the vote is taken are jointly responsible for the cost.

If a former resident is no longer paying a general services charge, they are no longer liable for capital improvements under sections 90A or 90B of the Retirement Villages Act 1999. A former resident is someone who has left the village and has not received their exit entitlement. In this situation, you as the operator must pay that person's share.

When capital improvements are requested by a resident or residents, you can ask them to pay for the improvements before you start work. If you do, keep the money in a trust account specifically for capital improvements. Penalties apply for failing to do this.

If the amount in the trust account is more than the improvement cost, refund the remainder to the residents.

Getting quotes

An individual resident or the residents' committee can ask you to get quotes for capital improvements requested by a resident or residents. You must get at least 2 quotes from qualified tradespeople unless this isn't practical. This would only be for exceptional reasons.

Give the residents copies of the quotes. If the quotes are large documents, give them summaries and make the full documents available.

Whoever requests the capital improvement must pay for the quotes.