Reports to the Council on the Ageing (COTA) showed many residents were unaware that contracts they signed with some of the state’s 530 registered retirement villages would see them lose thousands of dollars when their homes were re-sold.

COTA chief executive Miranda Starke said greater transparency around signing contracts was vital as many “moving into a retirement village do not understand the contract they have entered into with the operator and that’s concerning”.

Some residents moving out of villages reported how they were forced to pay to remove a new kitchen and “re-install the old one” before the retirement village owners would market their home, while others were unaware they could wait up to 18 months before sale funds were passed on.

“We received an enquiry from someone at her wit’s end who had been living at a retirement village for 10 years and had no maintenance done – the roof leaked, the garden was not maintained as they were promised,” Starke said.

The State Government has now released 60 proposed changes to the Retirement Villages Act 2016 that aim to make contracts, exit fees and re-marketing rules clearer, its review predicting that health and aged care will be the fastest growing area of spending over the next 40 years and needed addressing.

While many of the more than 26,500 South Australians living in retirement villages are happy, Starke said it was important for older residents to have their voices heard through the Your Say website community consultation open until May 19.

COTA has heard concerns around greater transparency from retirement village owners being vital when older people buy into their homes, residents or families often unaware of how village operators controlled the re-sale of their leases.

This concern was backed up by the report reviewing the act saying “40 per cent of online survey respondents do not think the information provided before signing a contract allows a person to make an informed decision and 29 per cent of respondents think that it does”.

The act review also raised complaints made to the Aged Rights Advocacy Service from residents who had been “bullied and harassed by operators. This in turn can lead to fear of retribution with residents not willing to speak up.”

Among its 60 recommendations, the report wants stronger standards introduced including a “fitness and proprietary check” of village managers along with a Code of Conduct training requirement.

The report also says marketing of retirement villages schemes should make it clear “that the property is not what is being purchased, but rather it is a lease/licence/share to live in the property, and the property remains owned by the operator”.

South Australian Retirement Villages Residents Association spokesman Roger Adamson said as the population aged, more “big players” were running retirement villages.

He regularly visited different retirement villages to speak with residents but when he asked “who understood their contract when they moved in, very few put their hands up”.

Many of these older residents had experience in buying and selling homes during their lives using traditional real estate agents or conveyers, but Adamson said those selling their leases in retirement villages were not currently covered by the same rules.

“When the person leaving or in many cases their children go to sell, they don’t understand the contract and they don’t understand how somebody who has paid say half a million dollars to move into a village is getting back a bit over $200,000,” Adamson, who lives in a retirement village in Golden Grove, said.

“There are also issues around condition reports; we’ve had complaints from people saying when they moved in they were told mould in the shower room would be removed, grout would be fixed – eight years later it is still the same.”

Health and Wellbeing Minister Chris Picton said the review of the act was undertaken in 2021 with close to 200 submissions, and the proposed changes now being considered by the State Government included improving contract transparency around all fees and charges.

“This includes the requirement for more information and clarity to be provided to prospective residents, including re-marketing fees and charges, how exit fees are calculated and the premises’ condition report,” he said.

It also includes strengthening standards for operators of retirement villages and staff “and expanding the types of offences that would disqualify a person from operating a retirement village”.