We observed in an earlier post that retirement villages of the ‘licence to occupy’ type are extremely profitable businesses.

Here, thanks to a reader, is a transcript of Paul Henry’s observations about them on his TV3/Radio Live show of 27 November 2015:

“A lot of these companies are not making a lot of money on their day to day care, most of them make their money, obscene amounts of money, off the backs of these poor people who are encouraged to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars buying the right to live in these properties — and then do you know what happens? One of them dies and the other one can’t live on their own and can’t shift out because of all kinds of restrictions on selling the property so you’ve got to go to the company to get them to sell the property.

“The worst case scenario — both of them get too sick and can’t afford the hospital care while they are staying in that property.  How do they move out -– you know I’ve heard some true nightmarish stories and that is where most of these — I’m going to use the word ‘evil’ — that is where most of these evil companies are making their money from: these poor people who are effectively being swindled out of their life savings. I think it is diabolical and the lid needs to be lifted on this.”

We well understand and relate to Paul Henry’s feelings.

If you have relatives in one of these establishments who you think are the victims of unscrupulous management, know that retirement villages are subject to both The Retirement Villages Act 2003 and The Retirement Villages Code of Conduct Act 2008. These are administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, so go there.

We would be very interested in stories that readers have.