Our Supreme Court case seeking to recover in-going contributions paid by former retirement village residents is off to the High Court, after support from the Victorian Attorney-General.
The former Berkeley Living Retirement Village in Patterson Lakes closed in 2017, leaving many former residents and their families, who had paid considerable refundable fees, out of pocket.
Following our successful prosecution of former manager Stephen George Snowden and reforms to Victoria’s retirement villages laws, we filed a legal application in the Supreme Court of Victoria last year, seeking to sell all the retirement village land and use the sale funds to ensure residents are repaid what they are owed.
Last month at our request, the Victorian Attorney-General applied to take the matter to the High Court of Australia. The Attorney-General is seeking a ruling that would give the Supreme Court of Victoria full powers to make all the orders we are seeking in the case, including the sale of all the individual lots of land that make up the former village.
The reason this is important is that some of the lots of land are now owned by the Commonwealth or the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, because the previous owners were companies that are now deregistered under federal law. This means that the Supreme Court must consider making orders that would cover the Commonwealth government – this raises constitutional issues, that the Attorney-General’s application to the High Court can help resolve.
Director Nicole Rich said Consumer Affairs Victoria would continue to support the High Court application and do anything in its powers to progress the case.
"Our priority is ensuring that the former Berkeley Living residents and their families receive their entitlements under the law," Rich said.
"As soon as the High Court application is resolved, we will take any next steps available to us to finalise our Supreme Court case in the public interest."