Land Lease Living Affordable Lifestyle Living | Page 15
What happens if my house doesn’t sell –
am I still obliged to pay site rental fees and
what happens to my home?
You are obliged to pay site fees until your site
agreement is ended or a new home owner enters into a
site agreement.
Your executors or beneficiaries have the right to sell
the home so that it remains on site. In this way, the
home is sold with the important right for the home to
remain on site.
Can friends and family stay?
Yes – you can have visitors. But you need the consent
of the operator if you want to have other persons live
with you.
Some communities may set reasonable conditions
for having visitors such as limiting the number of
persons that can stay overnight or the length of stay.
Usually most allow visits of between 4–6 weeks in a
year but do not allow you to charge guests for staying
on the premises. Spouses, partners and carers all have
an automatic right to live with the home owner without
the need for consent from the operator.
What happens if I breach a community rule
If the operator believes you have broken a community
rule, you may be issued with a written notice to remedy
the breach within a period of at least 30 days. If you fail
to remedy the breach in that time, the operator can
apply to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal
(NCAT). The Tribunal has the power to order you to
comply with the rule or, if it thinks the breach is
sufficient it may terminate your site agreement or
tenancy agreement.
Enjoy an affordable lifestyle in your retirement
Do I have to maintain my home?
In land lease communities, you are responsible for the
maintenance of your home. Site Agreements stipulate
that the home has to be maintained in a reasonable state
and you need to consult with and obtain permission
from the operator to add fixtures such as decks or
garages to the site, or to replace your home with
another.
However, permission cannot be unreasonably
withheld and an operator cannot force you to either
replace your home with a newer one or make any
upgrades or improvements unless there are health and
safety issues involved.
For your personal safety and well-being and to
protect your investment, it’s good idea to keep your
home in good order; in most communities residents are
very house-proud, often enhancing the garden areas
around their properties or adding to the charm of their
houses with flowering shrubs and pot plants.
What happens if an operator wants to
close or sell the site and it is to be used
for purposes other than a land lease
community?
An operator can give you a termination notice on the
grounds that there is to be a change in the use of your
site, but only if the NSW Civil and Administrative
Tribunal (NCAT) has authorised the notice and
development consent from the local council has been
obtained.
The termination notice must give you a minimum of
12-months to vacate the site unless any fixed term
remains on your site agreement. Operators must also
assist you in finding alternate accommodation and this
must be approximately the same standard of home on a
site requiring a similar rental to your existing home.
The operator must also cover the costs of your
relocation to another community including removal of
your home from its existing site, transportation of your
home and possessions, installing your home on the new
site and connecting services, repair of any damages
caused by the move and landscape the new site to the
same standard as the old site.
If you cannot or do not want to relocate then the
operator has to pay you compensation; the amount
payable, or method of calculation is set out in the
Residential (Land Lease Communities) Act 2013.
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