Retirement village help?

My mum passed away 3 years ago this year and it has been increasingly obvious that my dad has been having difficulties living on his own. He has stubbornly holding onto his independence as long as he can (80 years of age and I totally understand why).
He lives nearly 3 hours away from me so I try and visit as much as I can but it is hard and will get harder as DD gets older.
Recently he has been talking about selling up and moving to a retirement village but one that offers some independence.
So as this is an area outside of my experience I am asking for your knowledge and help on what I need to help him? How does it work? Is it rental or you have to buy your place? I am guessing it may be hard to get places? He is hoping to get closer to me even if it's just half way.

Any advice would be appreciated.

(mods sorry if this is in wrong spot but I thought it seemed most appropriate)

My grandmother went into a retirement village - firstly here in Perth and then down south.

She paid a fairly heft sum to buy in - I think from memory it was about $300,000 amost 15 years ago. That "bought" her her unit for life, and upon moving out or her death a refund was made of some but not all of the buy in price. There was no allowance for capital growth etc. She got included in that price I think regular maintenance, common garden areas etc. She was in what is called independent living, but there were panic buttons within her unit if she got into trouble, and also someone usually did a wander around every day to check on people. Given the community living set up, all the other oldies got to know her too so there was a good grapevine service that soon got going when someone wasn't doing so well.

The great part about the independent living is that they are almost guaranteed a place in low or high care within the nursery home part of the village when the time comes. Makes transition a lot quicker and easier. When my gran moved down south when my folks did she ended up having to move into the high care nursing home from her independent villa.

Having looked at moving her back up to Perth when my folks moved up here again, it was very hard to find low or high care nursing care for her (and sadly she was way beyond independent living by then).

All nursing homes must have a portion of their intake that is buy-in free (or greatly reduced) and then I think some of the oldie's pension is taken to cover costs - not entirely sure though what sort of money. These places are usually pretty hard to come by though, and the waiting lists are enormous.,

Good luck. I hope you can get your dad moved somewhere closer to you and where there are people that can keep an eye on him.

I think Lulu has explained how most retirement villages work. A lot of them have a waiting list for units. When you decide to move out you can't just sell your unit on the open market, it must be offered to someone on the waiting list.

My grand parents skipped the retirement village stage and went directly into a nursing home so I'm not sure of all the details for a RV although we did look into it until my grandma deteriorated quickly.

My advice would be to choose a couple of villages that you know of and which you think your dad would be happy in and to give them a call, it shouldn't be too hard to find out who manages them. At worst, you could always visit the management office and have a chat to someone.

Good on your dad for recognising that he can't live entirely independent any more. I hope his transition is smooth and he finds somewhere he loves!

Thanks for the info. Now I just worry that he has made a decision to look into it and the costs are prohibitive that he may reconsider.
Oh well will cross that bridge when I come to it.

My nan moved into a retirement village in 2009, with a section for nursing home patients too, so if it came to it (and it has), she could move into the nursing bit.

She bought her unit, paid a deposit and the contract was that the remainder could be paid when her house was sold. She was able to move into the retirement village before the house sold, but she then had a certain amount of time to pay in full. Once the unit was no longer required, it was to be sold at current market value. I believe the retirement village then took a small percentage of that and she (or her family) got the remainder. Her unit is currently up for sale as she has recently gone into the nursing home area, and when it sells, the money will go into her care. Anything left once she passes will be put into her estate.

There were different options available for her - she chose to have all her meals cooked, her unit cleaned and her washing done for her for a weekly fee that came from her pension. The big meals are breakfast and lunch where they go to a common room and are waited on, with dinner in their unit. If she doesn't appear for either breakfast or lunch, and hasn't notified staff that she will be absent, a staff member will go and check on her wellbeing. She could have lived as she wanted, cooking and cleaning herself, but she no longer wanted that worry (and we were glad to know that she was eating properly). Once she made the decision that she wanted to move into one, it was around 12 months before a unit became available (but only because she was being difficult about the situation - she made the decision that she wanted to move, and then didn't actually want to commit to it.) Since she did it, she says she's far happier than she's been in a very long time. They do day trips, have movie sessions, an in-house hairdresser comes, there's group activities like lawn bowls. A shuttle bus takes them to and from the local shops multiple times a day if they want to go. There's even a swimming pool that family are allowed to share too. The only complaint she had was that she chose apartment-style living, which meant that often residents burnt their toast and set off all the smoke alarms :lol:

I think the easiest thing for mum was picking somewhere and meeting the people that were running it. My grandmother gave the directive that she wanted to do it and left mum to work it all out. Mum really liked the woman who oversaw everything and that made it all a lot easier for her. Good luck!