Take seniors’ retirement village repayment concerns seriously - Labour
Wednesday, 22 April 2026
The Government is ignoring the concerns of seniors around retirement village paybacks at its peril, Labour MP Ingrid Leary says.
Consumer NZ has just launched a petition that asks people to back a call for residents to get their money back within three months of ending their occupation rights agreement (ORA) at a village.
The campaign comes in the wake of Associate Minister for Housing Tama Potaka’s announcement in December that the Retirement Villages Act will be reformed, after a years-long review.
One of the proposed reforms is that village operators will have 12 months to repay a resident’s money after they exit their ORA.
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This marks a change from the current legislation where operators do not have to repay a resident until their unit is relicensed.
But the change will not apply to current residents, instead it will apply only to new contracts signed after the new legislation has come into force.
Advocates for residents, including Leary, who is Labour’s spokesperson for seniors, believe 12 months is still too long, and the maximum timeframe should be shorter. They also believe the change should apply to current residents.
Leary has a member’s bill in the ballot which proposes legislating a three-month repayment timeframe, and she told The Post the fact Consumer NZ has also picked up the issue showed how serious it was.
She was particularly concerned about the decision to exclude current residents from the repayment timeframes, and said there were inconsistencies in the minister’s rationale around it.
The Government was prepared to include provisions in the bill that would require the ceasing of weekly fee payments on existing villages across the board for example, so the minister was cherry picking his legal position, she said.
In response to questions from Leary in Parliament on Monday, Potaka said most New Zealanders, including residents at villages he visited, believed in the sanctity of contract, particularly when it came to material provisions.
The minister also said the Government did not support a mandatory three-month repayment timeframe because of the massive material impact it would have on liquidity for village operators.
Any flow-on consequences would be a massive disincentive for people, particularly in small towns and rural areas, to move into retirement villages and villas, he said.
“Some things are a little bit easier to apply retrospectively—let’s say, stopping weekly fees when people actually move out of the villas.
“But once you start saying there’s a retrospective arrangement for the mandatory repayments of the value of an occupational rights agreement, that has significant liquidity and other impacts.”
Leary said she was not convinced by the operators’ argument around liquidity as their annual reports showed they had plenty of headroom for investment.
Many villages were in expansion mode, and they would first look to sell off the new build licences, then the ones mandated under the new law, and finally the licenses of existing residents, she said.
“So the reality of the cherry picking approach being taken by the Government is that it will effectively make existing residents the last cab off the ranks to get their money back.
“That’s grossly unfair, and stops current residents from getting the benefits of the reform after decades of work trying to get the legal situation remedied.”
Leary encouraged New Zealanders to sign the Consumer petition and send a clear message to the Government that it was ignoring seniors' concerns at their peril.
But the Retirement Villages Residents Council, which is funded by the Retirement Villages Association but acts independently, has a different take on the proposed repayment timeframe.
The council’s chairperson, Carole Shepherd said a three-month repayment timeframe sounded ideal, but the realities were more complex.
“Calls for capital to be repaid within three months are understandable, and I would love my capital to be repaid in that time, but let’s be realistic and pragmatic.”
If operators were required to repay capital before a unit was relicensed, the question became “who absorbs that cost”, and the answer was, inevitably, residents, she said.
“Operators will seek to recover early repayment costs through higher weekly fees or increased deferred management fee percentages.
“Residents tell us ‘don’t touch my fees’: I/my family can wait so long as my transition to aged care is transparent and I am looked after prior to relicensing.”
While the Government’s proposal was for a 12-month repayment timeframe, many residents had told the council they would prefer six months, as it aligned with typical probate timeframes, she said.
“However, they are equally clear that they do not want shorter repayment periods if it means increased costs — a highly likely outcome under a three-month requirement.”
Shepherd said the council’s position was grounded in what residents consistently told them and in the practical realities of how retirement villages operated.
According to JLL’s latest retirement village sector report, there are about 56,677 residents around the country, and the 75-plus age group is expected to increase rapidly over the coming years.
Demand for retirement units would grow, and it was estimated there would be a shortage of 11,284 units by 2033, escalating to 23,241 units by 2048, JLL said.