NSW Fair Trading has once again been forced to recognise the difficulties that retirement village managers are having in drawing up its Asset Management Plans (AMPs).
Christine Osgood, National Operations Manager at Living Choice Australia, which operates retirement communities in NSW, Queensland and South Australia, said she had been told in a meeting the NSW Government has realised not all retirement village operators are going to be compliant in time.
NSW Fair Trading had extended the deadline to 1 July but now states the department will not actively look to penalise operators who may have failed to prepare AMPs by the set deadlines for the first 12 months, provided the operator could show adequate evidence of attempting to prepare the data well before the deadline.
The Asset Management Plan must include the following content:
- an asset register of the village’s major items of capital, including information about the effective life of items of capital,
- a maintenance schedule of the village’s major items of capital, including information about capital replacement, and,
- operators must also prepare a three-year report for capital maintenance extracted from the asset management plan to inform expenditure for the annual budget.
A major item of capital is regarded as an item of capital for which an operator is responsible, that has a purchase cost of $1,000 or more, or is part of a group of items of capital that are similar each of which has a purchase price of $1,000 or more, and each of which has the same effective life and financial year of acquisition.
Christine said she was told at the meeting the Department had advised there will be no penalties if village managers can demonstrate they have commenced it and they are doing the work required.
“With COVID-19, a skeleton staff and not being able to enter residents’ homes it has just not been possible for many operators to carry out what is a lot of work,” she added.
