Couple at loggerheads with Radius over Waikato retirement village unit

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Windsor Court Village in Ōhaupō. Photo / Radius Residential Care
Te Ara Ahunga Ora the Retirement Commission has published this year’s first ruling by a disputes panel on a complaint from a couple living at a Waikato retirement village managed by NZX-listed Radius Residential Care.

The complaint to a disputes panel came from two people at Ōhaupō’s Windsor Court Retirement
Village.

It centred on what jurisdiction Radius had over the property they live in.
Ron and Claudia Currie have been at loggerheads with Radius over their place at the 22-unit village, established in the 1980s.
But in 2004, Radius bought management rights to the village and in 2007 had it registered as a retirement village under the law. Radius did not buy the units, just the management rights over them.
Unit four, occupied by the Curries, had originally been owned by Claudia Currie’s parents, who had bought it in 1988.
In 1995, with the consent of the then-village owner, the owners transferred the unit to a family trust. In 1998 Claudia Currie became a trustee and her name was registered on the title.
When her parents died, Ron and Claudia Currie moved into the unit, although the panel noted there was a dispute about whether consent was obtained for them to occupy it.
There was a further dispute as to whether they had an occupation rights agreement.
The Curries said they were not living in a retirement village under the standard retirement village rules of an occupation rights agreement. They said they were there under the Unit Titles Act, therefore they were not subject to the rules others in the village were.
But the panel found the Curries were subject to an occupation rights agreement.
Under the law against bullying, harassment and attempted exploitation, the Curries raised 28 items of alleged unfair treatment, of which 11 went in their favour but 16 went in the favour of Radius, the decision said.
The panel decided rules were in place to protect the Curries living in the village until the death of one or both of them or until they decide to leave.
But if one of their family or a new resident wants to shift in, Radius would need to give consent and a new occupation rights agreement would be needed.
Ron Currie told the Herald today after the decision was released that he had won $15,000 costs in the dispute.
But he questioned why that figure was not published in the commission’s summary of the outcome.
Overall, he thought the decision was fair.
“But we thought we’d get a lot more in costs,” Currie said, adding that he still hoped Radius would buy the unit, expecting $619,000 for it.
But Radius had not agreed to buy the unit, he said.
Radius had 20 days to appeal, which Currie said expired next week.
“Radius is a listed company and they should treat people better than what we have been treated,” Currie said.
Richard Callander, Radius chief operating officer, said today: “This is a long-running, complex and unique dispute and we thank all parties for the time they have spent on the matter. We do not consider the issue to be resolved.”
Brian Peat, Retirement Village Residents Association president, said of the decision today: “It’s a shambles. It’s been going on for about eight years and it was identified that the unit owners still own the property, as opposed to having a licence to occupy it. That’s how the real problem arose, going back to the last decade.
“When Radius took over [it was] on the basis that they supposedly own the land and the buildings. The Curries disputed that so the case has been going on for years.”
Peat said the $15,000 costs award to the Curries was significant.
The decision was largely in their favour on the basis they had been treated poorly, Peat said.
“The Curries want to sell their place and they want the market value. But Radius gave an offer some years ago which wasn’t realistic,” Peat said.
The situation was most unusual and he had been dealing directly with the Curries for some time over the dispute.
The association was receiving around six to eight complaints a week, he said.
Peat was not surprised this was 2024’s first complaint: “More people complain than this but either they give up or we solve it for them.”
Retirement village operators also resolve matters so complainants do not reach formal disputes process, he said.
More than 53,000 people live in retirement villages in New Zealand.
Gavin Read, Auckland-based head of research at real estate agency JLL, released the annual retirement village study in September, which found that by the end of last year, New Zealand had 41,111 village units in 470 villages.
Calculations indicate an occupancy rate of about 1.3 people per unit, so around 53,444 people lived in those villages by the end of last year, the study found.
In 2022, New Zealand had 38,918 people in 452 villages, JLL said last August. By the end of 2020, JLL estimated 47,249 people lived in villages, up on 45,000 a year previously and 40,000 in 2019.
Most older people do not live in such villages. Even with a village population of 53,000 people last year, that is only 13% of the estimated 383,000 New Zealanders aged 75-plus, although the study didn’t say that.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.

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