“Retirement” villages

Last night I watched an ABC 4Corners program, reported on ABC News, about Aveo, a retirement village company. Aveo is owned by a Malaysian man, Seng Huang Lee. His father had been jailed in Hong Kong for corporate deceit, yet Seng is very, very rich. He, it seemed, has Aveo as a “get rich quick scheme”, according to Lander, a retired diplomat who wears a bow tie. It had taken Lander many, many months to understand the extortive contract he had signed. This “company puts profit before people”, he said.

The program was about retired people who have been ground down inside their own property, which they had bought. Now, if they want to sell it and move out – or were kicked out – they were charged an “exit” fee, along with anything else that Aveo would take from them. 4 Corners interviewed a number of retired people who were being mistreated by Aveo. One man who's partner had died wanted to stay. He had been together with his partner for many years, he and his partner had bought the unit, but only his partner's name was on the contract. Aveo didn't care how he felt, they just kicked him out – and charged him an exit fee. Others were mistreated:

• One bought for $135,000 but 4.5 years later as it was sold to Aveo; they ended up with only $48k.
• Another couple sold for $159,000 but would only end up with $58k from Aveo.
• One woman, diagnosed – by Aveo – as having dementia was moved in to a hospital but charged a maintenance charge every month while she wasn't in her own unit. She is now fighting Aveo.

“Exortive” is defined by the dictionary online as “To obtain by coercion, intimidation, or psychological pressure”. Aveo is not the only retirement village which does this. The Park View Retirement Village in Bethania, where I stayed for 5 months, was just as bad. That property owner had acted similarly:

• Aveo charges $6,000 per year for “corporate fees”. I paid $100 each week ($5,200 per year) for “management fees”, which I had found out about when I got my Tenant Ledger. I had thought it was supposed to have been for the food I ate, yet even when I stopped paying for their food the “management fee” still appeared on my Tenant Ledger: they were then taking it out of the full rent I paid!
• Aveo changed some of its villages from “Retirement” to “Aged Care”, without telling anyone who already lived in them. Park View Retirement Village didn't changed their sign – it still says Park View Retirement Village – but I was told it was not a “retirement” village but a “senior” village.

In my blog on 1 January this year I wrote of the past year. For November 2016: “Wrote a blog about site manager calling me names - “Nutcase” 1 November. Dom (friend) committed suicide – self-invoked hunger while he waited to die from asbestosis. Blogged about him in “Asbestosis” on 7 November.... Attempted suicide later this month; taken to hospital and kept overnight. Locked out of my unit by the site manager when I got back, illegal. Ongoing communication with police, Tenants Qld, Q-Star, YFS and others for help.” Later, 9 April, I wrote about how I had felt from the illegal mistreatment I'd been under at Park View Retirement Village. The blog was titled Anxiety, Stress, Depression, PTSD, Stroke, Suicide – what's the difference? That was exactly how I'd felt. Like many, many other retirement village residents, I hadn't realised that too many retirement villages are extremely bad with their behaviour and their treatment of residents. Before 4 Corners and now, I have felt very sad for other retired people who are treated like me.

I am just starting to realise (too late) that the behaviour of people in this country has downgraded in the last 5 years. Anyone without decent (any) money is pushed to the background. Many end up homeless. Older people with money are rorted by dishonest schemes.

This program will be repeated today (Tuesday) at 10am, Wednesday at 11pm on ABC and on Saturdays at 8.00pm on ABC News 24. Please watch it if you didn't yesterday.

I will just say that I am now feeling much, much better in my unit which is not part of a retirement village like I had been at the end of last year with mistreatment by two non-Australian managers of the retirement village. They weren't Seng, but they were close. That sort of bad behaviour doesn't fit in here.

We must rid ourselves of it.