in August announcing<\/a> it would within 100 days of being elected pass a bill that would require full repayment within three months, based on a member’s bill from its spokesperson for Seniors, Ingrid Leary.<\/p>\nThat bill includes a similar initial repayment requirement for 10 percent within five working days, rather than four weeks.<\/p>\n
Leary said National was “moving the deck chairs while locking in the unfairness”.<\/p>\n
“Nine months is still far too long, and 56,000 current residents will still miss out. Operators could still hold on to almost all of a resident’s money until the nine-month deadline.<\/p>\n
“Labour requires the 10 percent payment much more quickly within five working days and the full balance within three months.”<\/p>\n
Leary’s member’s bill has been in the ballot since May 2025.<\/p>\n
The leaked document said the Government also considered a three-month repayment deadline, but official modelling had found that could require the sector to hold or access between $3.2 billion and $4.1 billion, and add up to $118,000 to the cost of entering a village if all costs were passed on to residents.<\/p>\n
Both the Retirement Villages Association – which represents owners – and the Retirement Village Residents’ Association which represents residents were opposed to the government’s proposal.<\/p>\n
Potaka said nine months would strike a fair and responsible balance.<\/p>\n
“You can’t keep everybody happy all of the time … we think we’ve struck the right approach … we’ve listened to operators, we’ve listened to residents, we’ve listened to the retirement commissioner and a range of other stakeholder groups and entities.”<\/p>\n
“It gets residents their money sooner while protecting the affordability and viability of retirement village living,” he said.<\/p>\n
Operators would still be required to sell units as fast as possible, at the best price possible, the document said.<\/p>\n
They would also be required to provide regular updates to residents and their families, and obtain a valuation if the unit had not been relicensed after six months.<\/p>\n
“A more efficient and effective dispute resolution system will be introduced for cases where operators are not meeting their obligations.”<\/p>\n
The changes would be made next Parliamentary term.<\/p>\n
With the review having been published a year ago, Potaka said the time taken to get the policy across the line was because the government wanted to get it right.<\/p>\n
“What we’re not going to do is we’re not going to break the industry with some quite unreasonable quite speculative proposals a la three months.”<\/p>\n
He rejected the suggestion a year was a long time for residents to wait.<\/p>\n
“Not really … it takes many many years to get some policies right, so I could refer to Te Turi Whenua, the M\u0101ori Land Act, that took 15 years … we want to make sure we get to a sustainable and enduring solution.”<\/p>\n
Govt ‘caved’ to owners’ lobbying – Consumer NZ<\/p>\n
Consumer NZ, which has been campaigning for a three-month deadline in line with Labour’s policy, said the decision to shift to a nine-month deadline “shows it has caved to business lobbying”.<\/p>\n
“The retirement village sector is a multi-billion-dollar industry. The government has effectively ignored the voice of the people in favour of big business,” chief executive John Duffy said.<\/p>\n
“This is equivalent to putting a ribbon on a donkey and calling it a stallion.”<\/p>\n
“Currently, most exiting residents are repaid within seven to eight months, which shows the sector can move quicker than what the government is proposing.”<\/p>\n
Duffy said Labour had “laid down the gauntlet and the current government failed to pick it up”.<\/p>\n
Change would hike residents’ costs – retirement village sector<\/p>\n
Retirement Villages Association executive director Michelle Palmer said the deadlines would backfire by forcing villages to hold capital for repayments rather than invest in villages, services and care beds.<\/p>\n
“The Government may think this policy will help residents, but it will do the opposite,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Residents will pay more, fewer care beds will be built and more older New Zealanders will have to rely on an already stretched hospital system.”<\/p>\n
Palmer agreed residents and families should not face unnecessary delays, and said the sector supported the 12-month repayment window as well as ending weekly fees on exit, clearer disclosure, fairer treatment of chattels, stronger complaints pathways and early access for genuine hardship.<\/p>\n
She said just as a homeowner is paid when their house settles, a former resident or their estate is repaid once the unit has been refurbished, sold and settled.<\/p>\n
“In a weaker property market, that can take longer,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Requiring payment sooner does not remove the cost – it passes it on to other residents through higher fees, higher entry prices or reduced services.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A leaked document shows the Government would require retirement villages to repay residents within nine months, and 10…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,184,185],"class_list":["post-896154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Minister](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/4JMA35B_tamapotaka_jpg.jpeg\")
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