Retirement Village and Land Lease Contract Review
Before you or your parents sign
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Moving into a retirement village or an over-50s land lease community is not like buying a house. You usually do not own the land, you pay ongoing fees, and when you leave, an exit fee comes out of what you get back. The contract decides how much and how quickly.
Optimum Lawyers is a property law firm in Parramatta Square, led by principal solicitor Wisam Assi. We act on property in every Australian state and territory.

Send us the contract and disclosure documents
We offer a free initial contract assessment. It is a brief first look at whether the contract appears ready for a full paid legal review. It is not the full review, and it is not free conveyancing.
Retirement villages
- What you are buying. Usually a lease or licence to live in the unit, not a freehold title.
- Entry costs. The ingoing contribution and any other upfront charges.
- Ongoing fees. Recurrent charges for services and maintenance, and how they can increase.
- Exit fees. The deferred management fee, usually a percentage that grows with each year of residence, plus refurbishment costs.
- Capital gain or loss. Whether you share in any change in value when the unit is resold.
- Refunds. When you are paid out after you leave, and what happens if the unit does not sell.
Land lease communities
In a land lease community, also called a residential park or manufactured home estate, you own the home but rent the site. The site agreement sets the site fees, how they increase, the community rules, and what happens when you sell. Each state has its own legislation and disclosure requirements.
Why get the contract reviewed
The documents are long, the fees interact in ways that are hard to see, and the cost of getting it wrong falls on your estate as much as on you. A review sets out, in plain terms, what you pay in, what you pay along the way and what you get back in different scenarios. Families often arrange this for a parent who is moving.
Popular retirement areas
We act for clients moving to coastal and regional areas such as Port Macquarie, Hervey Bay, Victor Harbor and the Sunshine Coast, wherever they live now.
What clients say
“Wisam was incredible from the get go. Very knowledgeable, well priced and extremely prompt”
Peter Aliferis, Google review
Questions about retirement village and land lease contracts
Do I own my unit in a retirement village?
Usually not. Most retirement village homes are held under a lease or licence.
What is a deferred management fee?
An exit fee deducted when you leave, usually calculated as a percentage that increases with the years you lived there.
Do I own the land in a land lease community?
No. You own the home and pay site fees to use the land.
Can family members arrange the review?
Yes. We often work with adult children helping a parent, with the parent’s authority.
Related: Contract of sale review | Property lawyers | Hervey Bay
From Our Clients
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Top Rated
Service 20265.0 verified by TrustindexTrustindex verifies that the company has a review score above 4.5, based on reviews collected on Google over the past 12 months, qualifying it to receive the Top Rated Certificate.



























