Residential parks have shot to prominence as an affordable accommodation offer for ageing Australians, thanks to the work of John Wood at National Lifestyle Communities (W.A.), James Kelly at Lifestyle Communities (VIC) and recently Simon Owen at Ingenia (see later story).
The business model for park residents is that they own the home but rent the land, in most cases with Centrelink rental support. In the first major hit of this finance model the ATO released a draft ruling last week which would force the rental costs to increase by up to 10% immediately and could possibly be retrospective. Affecting over 100,000 mostly pensioners, the ATO is reviewing the GST dating back to 2000. At that time movable home estates were considered commercial residential premises and therefore not subject to GST. The Affiliated Residential Park Residents Association (ARPRA) is preparing a resident action program to fight the ruling.