1. SECURITY OF TENURE
Acquiring a Life Right guarantees you and your spouse security of tenure for the rest of your lives, protected by the Retired Persons Act. With sectional title ownership, you don’t have the same protection. At a time when life expectancies are growing, you don’t want to have to worry about outliving your savings and having to move somewhere more affordable later on.
2. VALUE FOR MONEY
A Life Right is the most affordable way to buy into a privileged retirement lifestyle. There are no bond registration fees, transfer duties, conveyancing fees or VAT. And no capital gains on any profit. Perhaps most importantly, the developers can keep the price of Life Rights sales lower than sectional title as they can make their profits over a longer term, when they resell a property that becomes vacant later on.
3. NO MAINTENANCE COSTS
With a Life Right option, you don’t have to worry about the maintenance of your home or the common areas of your village. This crucial long-term requirement is, by law, the responsibility of the developer. In sectional title schemes, maintenance is the responsibility of the owners themselves – who may not be well equipped to make the best decisions, or want the hassles and headaches of budgets, levies and renovation costs.
4. CONTROLLED LEVIES
The Life Right option gives much greater certainty about levies, and there will never be any of those nasty special levies for big refurbishment projects. These costs will be solely for the developer’s account. In addition, the Life Right developer is required by law to provide a “statement of basis” for levy calculations as well as an estimate of levies for two years in advance. This gives Life Right retirees clarity about upcoming levies and the ability to plan around predictable costs.
5. NO MANAGEMENT HEADACHES
The Life Right model guarantees that the management of a retirement village will be in the hands of professionals, not amateurs. Group decision-making by retirees forming a Body Corporate can be time-consuming and error-ridden, and create hassles and arguments among residents. By contrast, professional managers have training and experience, and will be driven to maintain standards and levels of satisfaction of their residents because they are employed by the developers, who need to ensure optimal resale values. So the interests of the developers and the residents are perfectly aligned.
