Consumer Protection currently expects the first stage of the WA retirement village reforms, the operative provisions of the Retirement Villages Amendment Act 2024 and the new Retirement Villages Regulations, to commence on 1 September 2026. The implementation timetable presently runs through to 1 July 2028.
The supporting Regulations, approved forms, and guidance are still being finalised. Operators can nevertheless begin contract mapping, data validation, and process design now.
The relevant stage-one inserted provisions, and regulations made under them, expressly extend to existing contracts and arrangements, except to the extent that the Regulations provide otherwise. That does not resolve how the reforms will apply to residents who permanently vacated before commencement, which is dealt with below.
- Payment clauses that depend on resale
Many residence contracts provide for the exit entitlement to be paid when the premises are resold.
Under the Amendment Act, once the relevant provisions commence, the operator will generally be required to pay on or before the earliest of several statutory dates:
- the payment date under the residence contract;
- seven days after another person enters into occupation with the operator’s consent;
- a date agreed between the parties;
- 12 months after the resident permanently vacates; and
- where the Tribunal terminates the residence contract, 10 days after the date fixed by the Tribunal as the date by which the resident must vacate.
Resale is not a precondition to payment under the 12-month limb, and the 12-month date is a backstop rather than the operative deadline. In a particular case the deadline may be considerably earlier, and may be set by the contract itself. A clause making payment entirely dependent on resale may therefore no longer reflect the operator’s statutory obligations.
The agreed-date limb operates within that calculation and is not a means of deferring an earlier statutory deadline. A resident may grant a written extension, but that is a separate statutory mechanism with its own conditions and revocation rules.
Permanent vacation
The date of permanent vacation is a statutory concept, not simply the day the resident moved out. Where the contract requires notice of an intention to vacate, permanent vacation occurs on the later of 28 days after written notice is given to the operator, regardless of the notice period in the contract, and the delivery of vacant possession. Where notice is not required, it occurs when vacant possession is given.
How the requirements apply to residents who permanently vacated before commencement is a matter for the transitional provisions, which expressly authorise regulations dealing with those residents. This should be confirmed against the Regulations as made, as it materially affects the timing of any exposure.
It may, therefore, be useful for operators to identify existing and anticipated departures potentially affected, and to model the resulting payment or buy-back exposure.
- Extension applications
Once the relevant provisions commence, an operator may apply to the Commissioner for Consumer Protection for additional time to pay an exit entitlement or complete a buy-back, and a separate exemption process will be available. Both applications will have to be made in an approved form.
The extension is not routine relief. It may be granted only once in relation to the requirement concerning a particular resident, for a period of up to 12 months, and only where exceptional circumstances make compliance by the original deadline unreasonable.
Consumer Protection’s consultation material proposed that an application be lodged at least 60 days before the applicable deadline, though that is not yet confirmed in a final instrument. If it is retained, escalation will need to be triggered by reference to whichever statutory due date applies in the particular case, rather than at a fixed point in a twelve-month cycle. Because the payment rule operates on the earliest of several dates, the decision may need to be taken before the twelve-month backstop approaches. An escalation process triggered only once a payment is overdue would be triggered too late to obtain the relief available.
- Aged-care accommodation payments
The Act authorises regulations enabling payments from an unpaid exit entitlement to fund a former resident’s actual or proposed residence in an aged-care facility. The detail, such as the entitlement to request payment, the evidence and form required, the operator’s obligation to comply, and the permissible recipients, is left to the Regulations, and should be checked before procedures are settled. Consumer Protection has indicated that a request form is expected from early August 2026.
Existing contracts are unlikely to address this, as the entitlement did not previously exist. Any mandatory obligation will operate on its own terms notwithstanding inconsistent contract drafting. Procedures should not assume a broad discretion to approve or refuse a request; the Regulations may instead require compliance whenever the prescribed requirements are satisfied.
Procedures should cover:
- how requests are received, validated, and assessed;
- how the estimated entitlement is calculated; and
- how interim payments are recorded and reconciled in the final settlement.
- Governance
The reforms expand the list of offences under the Retirement Villages Act to which the officer-liability provisions of the Criminal Code apply, including the exit-entitlement, buy-back, extension, and exemption offences. Liability does not extend automatically to every offence created by the reforms.
Where a body corporate commits a listed offence, an officer may also be guilty if the officer failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it. The court must consider what the officer knew or ought to have known, whether the officer was in a position to influence the conduct of the body corporate, and any other relevant matter.
Implementation should therefore be visible to the board and senior management, rather than treated only as a contracts or administration exercise. A compliance plan prepared and implemented before commencement, identifying the obligations that apply, who is responsible for each action, the contracts, systems and procedures affected, and the reporting and escalation process, may assist in demonstrating the reasonable steps taken to prevent non-compliance.
What we suggest leaving alone for now
We do not recommend a complete rewrite of all residence contracts before September.
The new disclosure documents, the community arrangement statement and the prospective resident information statement, are expected to apply to contracts entered into on or after 1 July 2027, with the documents themselves indicated for release from around March 2027. A full rewrite now may therefore require further revision within about a year. The better sequence is to make focused stage-one amendments now, and to undertake the broader rewrite once the 2027 requirements are settled.
A five-year plan for capital maintenance and capital replacement, together with the capital maintenance fund, is scheduled for the later stage commencing 1 July 2028. These require forward planning and budgeting, but are not part of the September 2026 deadline.
How we can help
We can offer village operators a review of a residence contract suite against the upcoming requirements.
If it would be more useful to discuss where your village sits before committing to a review, we are glad to do so.
This article contains general information current as at 27 July 2026 and is not legal advice.
