Over the last few years, the Retirement Villages Act 2003 has begun to change the retirement-village landscape - and it comes fully into force on 1 May this year. The Act is designed to protect residents by setting clear regulations about what's expected of the industry.

Until now, only operators who voluntarily belonged to the Retirement Villages Association (which has its own code of practice and disputes process) have had any formal standardised process for dealing with day-to-day issues that arise in villages.

But while the new legislation will give consumers more protection across the whole industry and spell out the costs of living in a village, there's still plenty of "extras" when you buy into a retirement village. It's a case of buyer beware.

Our investigation found that:

• Retirement-village contracts are extremely complex and generally one-sided financially, benefiting village operators not residents. There is usually little opportunity to alter the contract before you join a village. See Contract complexity for more.
  
  
• Often residents receive no capital gain on their retirement-village property, nor on any improvements they've made to that property while living there. See Capital gain for more.
  
  
• There can be multiple charges for maintenance and administration - which can be confusing. See Fees and charges for more.
  
  
• Residents often have no control over the sales process. See Leaving the village for more.
  
  
• The village operator is in a position to set the costs of refurbishment of a unit when a resident leaves - this may be more than residents expect or may not be fully spent on refurbishment. See Refurbishment rorts for more.

Village life

A Retirement Commission survey found that of the residents of retirement villages:

• 70 percent of residents live alone.
• 70 percent are women.
• The average age of entry is around 78.
• 73 percent are aged 80 years or over. Only 7 percent are under 70 years and 12 percent are over 90 years of age.
• 99 percent of those surveyed said they were either satisfied or very satisifed with their village.
• About half (54 percent) of the 13 percent of residents who had made a complaint in the last year were not satisfied that it had been resolved promptly and to their satisfaction.