ELDERLY residents in independent living retirement villages throughout the ACT are concerned that changes now being considered to the Retirement Villages Act 2012 and associated regulation may not give them fair and equitable legislative protection relating to the cost of maintenance, repair and replacement of capital items.

Minister Shane Rattenbury has reconvened the Retirement Villages Act 2012 Review Advisory Group to consider what is referred to as “second tranche issues”. One of the issues to be considered is maintenance, repair and replacement of capital items.

Capital items for which the operator is responsible include a building or structure, plant, machinery or equipment, and any part of the village’s infrastructure. The operator is also responsible for capital items in residential premises and includes curtains, blinds, whitegoods, tables, chairs, hot water systems, light fittings, taps and sanitary fittings.

There are three definitions in the Retirement Villages Act 2012 (s 135) which are:

Capital item – what capital items are the responsibility of the operator; Capital maintenance – meaning works carried out for repairing or maintaining a capital item; and

Capital replacement – means works carried out for replacing a capital item but does not include capital maintenance.

So when (routine/scheduled) maintenance work is carried out on an air-conditioning unit and the thermostat has to be replaced, the “works carried out “ is capital maintenance, but the parts (operator’s responsibility) replaced are capital replacement. The labour component of routine maintenance is capital maintenance (what residents pay for) while the parts replaced (what the operator pays for) are capital replacement.

Currently residents pay for all capital item maintenance in the village including all parts and labour.

Bellerive residents are calling on all retirement village residents and members of the ACT Legislative Assembly to support an amendment, which was previously in the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2016, of the definition of capital item to provide that “capital item” includes all or any part of a capital item.

Retirement village residents are seeking from MLAs fair and equitable legislative protection that gives all village residents assurance that operators pay their share of capital maintenance, repair and replacement costs.

Allan Wright, chair, Bellerive Retirement

Village Residents Committee, Lyons