Scott Lynda: Retirement Villages Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Scott Lynda: Retirement Villages Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9435] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 The National Party will be supporting this bill. It was one of the first things I got really involved in when I became a new member of Parliament. The Law Commission report was produced in 1996 as I remember and it identified problems that had the potential to escalate within an industry that had grown over the previous 10 years. 
Retirement villages shortly to be renamed lifestyle villages are certainly an excellent choice for many New Zealanders who want security a call system to have the grounds maintained—especially an elderly woman living on her own—to know that they have companionship and to know that they are in a community where they get support. In days gone by people used to go into rest homes. They used to drive to the door. Rest homes had to have a large number of car-parks but not any more because these days people go to a rest home in an ambulance. There is a lot of work done to keep people in their own home and retirement villages offer a very good lifestyle option. 
But the Law Commission did identify that there was a need to protect residents and to protect the industry to some degree. I came to Parliament in 1999 and one of the first things I did in 2000 was to turn the Law Commission report into a member’s bill. I had quite a lot of debate with the statutory supervisors. I looked at the compliance costs of legislation such as this. There are some small homes around New Zealand. I think of some of the church homes some of the kaumatua flats and some of the places that have developed in especially the South Island where there might be a rest home a dementia unit or a hospital with six seven or eight flats or houses around it that are sold. That is quite different from the very large complexes of retirement villages where there are hundreds of houses. I felt that those with up to 6 maybe 12 flats or houses should be exempt. The major compliance costs that come with this legislation will pose a huge burden on places like that. As Mr Franks was saying before that will really limit access which will be to the detriment of some of those smaller lifestyle options. 
I believe that having the member’s bill in the ballot did push the Government to speed up the development of its own legislation. The select committee did work to improve the legislation. I think the second select committee after the last election did a very good job as did the officials to ensure that we had workable legislation that balanced those risks between the needs of the residents the collective needs of a village and the ability for new players to come into the market. We see that there have been some substantial changes to the bill for the good. 
The Retirement Villages Association has always had a code of rights. The association developed basically to ensure that its members had a very high standard. It did a market research survey of retirement village residents’ satisfaction and found that only 1 percent of village residents were dissatisfied with the village. But Grey Power hears from that 1 percent and I heard from that 1 percent when I was a geriatrician and working in the aged-care sector. There were a few examples of people who did get trapped in villages and did not enjoy being there. There is now a cooling-off period. People who move into a retirement village have a certain time in which they can change their mind about it. Even though they might have signed up to a legal contract they may exit without harsh provisions being applied. 
There is also a disclosure document to protect residents’ interests. It makes it very clear what a person is buying—that one is buying a licence to occupy not buying a piece of land and a unit. A person is buying a licence to occupy a house in a village and that is a lifestyle choice. When people know what they are buying into generally they are a lot happier. They know the financial implications if they leave and if they should by misfortune die their families know what they bought into and the financial implications of that. There is that need to protect residents. 
There is also a need to protect the collective interests of residents because most of the disputes in retirement villages are between residents. Noise pets cars and all sorts of things come up as problems when people live next door to each other. There is a disputes resolution process in the bill. It was felt that it would be very expensive if the statutory supervisors were involved in that process so there are two levels of that process: a complaints facility which one hopes will be able to deal with the local little problems of people living next to each other; and the more major disputes resolution process which the Retirement Commissioner has input into by way of appointing the disputes panel. 
National has been concerned about some of things that are included in the bill such as the broad discretionary powers of the disputes panel around delays in the sale or disposal of units. That was one of the things that Grey Power brought up. There is concern that when somebody wishes to exit or has exited a retirement village or someone has died and that person’s family wishes to be able to access the estate the unit can take time to sell. It is not such an issue at the moment because we have waiting lists for a lot of the villages and there is a very hot property market but in a situation where that is not the case—and we have seen that many times in New Zealand—some of the units can sit around for 2 or 3 years and take a long time to sell. 
It would be of concern if the disputes panel could force buy-back. It would jeopardise the village as a whole and that must be taken into account. There is the individual’s need there is the need of the village as a whole and there is the need of the people—the developers of retirement villages—who have invested their money time and effort in developing this industry and supplying people with this lifestyle choice. It is a matter of getting that balance right. National members support the changes that have been made to the bill because we feel that a lot of those changes make that balance much clearer and better defined. 
But the National Party is still concerned about compliance costs and the fact that there are no exemptions for any of the smaller homes and retirement villages. We will also probably see a lack of new investment. It will be harder to enter the market and to exit the market as well under this legislation. The code of residents’ rights has also caused us some concern because it has not been specified and identified but the Retirement Commissioner has an obligation to keep an eye on the implementation of this bill and to monitor that code of practice. All in all we support the bill. We hope it will improve the functioning of all retirement villages in New Zealand.