ON THE MOVE
Aileen Keery’s husband Jim was disappearing into dementia, but didn’t want to move from their home. When they visited Auckland’s Pinesong Village and Jim liked the place, Aileen was so relieved they rushed in too quickly.
‘‘The village is beautiful. It has so many things on offer. It’s like a resort.’’
The villa turned out to get no winter sun – like living in a cave.
That was six years ago. Now she’s 82 and her husband is in care, so she’s paying the same $716 monthly fee for their villa as she did for two people, plus the $700 monthly bill for her husband’s care. He had to move to a nearby village as Pinesong had only luxury, ensuite care, which cost an unaffordable $85 extra a day. As it is, she’s paying a $21 daily surcharge for him to have a toilet. Their four children help out, but things are still tight.
‘‘It leaves me with very little for food and clothing. You are
budgeting very tightly. It is difficult.’’
Keery would be paying for her husband’s care even if they had stayed in their own home. But the village option does seem expensive and, once you’re there, you’re hooked in.
If she left now, Keery would get back only $259,000 of her original $370,000 payment. Meanwhile, units in her village now cost from about $485,000 to $1m. And retirement village units tend to cost between two-thirds and threequarters of the average price of surrounding homes.
‘‘There would not be a hope that you could buy anything – even a small apartment in another village. I would have to board or rent. You are pretty stuck, really, unless you’ve got money.’’
Nonetheless, if she could rewind time, she would still move into a village. She has great friends and helps with choir and bingo and a bush care group. But she’d take more time over the decision.
Watchdog Troy Churton advises people should consider retirement villages only for their last move, as the business model makes it hard to re-enter the property market.
Transparency around transfer costs – whether it’s from independent villas to serviced apartments in the same village, or into rest home care – is one of the CFFC’s key concerns, he says.
About 70 per cent of retirement villages have care homes on site, and people often move into villages in the hope of an easy transition to care. But if no standard rooms are available when a resident’s partner needs to move quickly, they can find themselves paying $70 a day for a premium room, as well as the fixed village costs.
‘‘That’s $25,000 a year which has to come from somewhere . . . These are the cost situations we want to see better disclosed at the beginning of a retirement village proposition.’’
The CFFC will report to the Government on the issue by July.