After Mum died, a camper of sorts moved into her unit

My dear old mum passed away 11 weeks ago. A couple of weeks short of her 90th birthday, she’d had a physically active life as a farmer, equestrian and angler.

But it was her mind that let her down in the end.

So, while it’s always tough losing a parent, in her case it was a happy release from a poor quality of life.

Two years earlier I had moved her into a retirement village, one that also had a hospital wing.

Staunchly defensive of her own independence, it took her a while to come around to the idea.

But one day I arrived at her house down south to visit her, and at 3pm she was still in her pyjamas trying to eat breakfast. I just said: ‘‘Come on, Mum – you need help.’’

I did a quick ring around and was lucky enough to find a village with an empty studio and moved her in the next day.

A good village it was, too. The studios and villas were immaculate, the garden outlook was attractive and the staff kind.

Some services seemed a bit pricey, but from what I could see they were largely market aligned, and for the sake of having my mum somewhere safe with 24-hour call, it seemed a small price for me to pay at the time.

Over the next two years Mum’s headspace deteriorated, but the staff were patient with her. And when she moved into the hospital wing, the head nurse was outstanding.

Somehow it just doesn’t seem fair that a dead person ends up acting as a bank to a living person.

Mum passed away on February 8 and I cleaned out her studio the next day.

Then I got focused on funerals, whā nau and public gathering logistics to ensure we gave her a good sendoff. That we did with a service that was partially staged on a riverbed across from a couple of her fishing spots and featured a bugling huntsman, stirrup cups of brandy and a casket painted by her granddaughters.

A couple of weeks later I heard from locals down south that someone was living in Mum’s old studio.

Excellent, I thought. That means Mum’s estate can be settled and family matters taken care of.

But that wasn’t the case.

I got an email a few weeks later from the village saying that someone had moved in, but that they were an existing unitholder in the village and needed to sell their unit.

And under the occupation rights agreement (ORA), there was a clause that suspends their obligation to pay for a new unit until their old unit sells. It’s called ‘‘early occupancy’’.

From my perspective, it’s like a person gets to free camp until their funds

free up, and it was a bit of a surprise.

It’s covered in the voluminous ORA, but it’s not something that I recall being brought to our attention.

And somehow it just doesn’t seem fair that a dead person ends up acting as a bank to a living person.

Around this time I also discovered my mother had been paying a service charge of about $130 a week ever since she died. Yep, that’s right.

This is a service charge for a completely empty unit with the lights turned off and the doors closed.

Subsequently, I’ve found out that the empty unit service charge is worked out to cover various costs.

Of that $139 per week, 30% is depreciation and chattels, 22% is insurance, 20% is rates and 9% is for repairs.

To be clear, Mum was dead. I’d cleaned out the studio completely and left it clean and tidy.

So it was surprising to find out that it was depreciating at $41 a week, that it was costing $30 a week to insure or that it was costing $12 a week to repair.

The good news was that the camper was required to pick up the service charge, so my dead mum wasn’t picking up the ticket after they moved in.

I’ve now had word that they will have funds available at the end of June to be able to buy the new ORA so that Mum’s estate will finally get what’s owing (less a hefty management fee).

But it’s remarkable that that will be more than four months after Mum died and more than three months since someone started living in her unit.

And to be clear, this particular village is only doing what is common practice.

Last year the retirement commissioner released a review of retirement villages’ legislative framework.

The review found system issues relating to the time it took operators to resell units after a death, unfair contract terms and ineffective complaints processes.

In total, it found retirement village residents have much less consumer protection than other tenants and recommended that minimum standards be established for key exit matters such as the ones I’ve experienced.

It also called for a full government review of the Retirement Villages Act.

If my experiences are anything to go by, that review can’t come quick enough.