Key points

• The NSW Government has published the Retirement Village Regulation 2025 which commenced on 1 September 2025.
• Operators will need to update some forms, such as the General Enquiry Document and the Disclosure Statement, and revise their Asset Management Plans.

The principle changes in the new Regulations may be summarised as follows:

General Enquiry Document

This must now be in the form published in the Government Gazette on 1 August 2025 and include a copy of the Village Rules and the Information Sheet published by the Department “Moving into a Retirement Village?”.

Disclosure Statement

This must now be in the form published in the Government Gazette on 1 August 2025 with the average rent comparison figure and a copy of the Village Rules.

A formula has been provided for calculating the Average Rent Comparison Figure, but in substance there is no change to the calculation.

Documents to be available to residents and prospective residents

This now includes the following additional information:

• the available premises in the Retirement Village with the listed price, size and number of bedrooms; and
• for proceedings involving the Retirement Village in the previous 5 years, a copy of the reasons for decisions and orders made.

Maintenance Report

This report must now be prepared annually, rather than the 3 year report previously required.

Asset Management Plans

These plans continue to be required to be revised where the total cost of capital maintenance for major items of capital are likely to increase by 25% or more than originally estimated, but now maintenance costs is specified to be calculated net of CPI increases.

Conduct rules for operators of retirement villages

There have been a number of minor changes to the wording and substance of these rules set out in Schedule 9 of the Regulation including:

1. duties regarding elder abusive prevention;
2. the contents of marketing materials; and
3. the management of the retirement village.

Key actions

The key action items for Operators are:

1. update the General Enquiry Document and Disclosure Statement;
2. check, and if necessary, update the information available to residents and prospective residents; and
3. revise and update the Capital Maintenance Report for the next annual budget and check the increase in costs in the Asset Management Plans.

This article was written by Christopher Conolly, Partner.