Elderly Aussies face eviction as caravan park crisis sparks urgent calls for reform

Several residents were facing eviction at the Rose Gardens Beachside Holiday Park at Emu Point near Albany. Source: ABC

An advocacy group is calling on the government to urgently overhaul the rules protecting long-term residents in caravan parks and lifestyle villages, as elderly tenants — some in their 80s — face the devastating prospect of losing their homes with little notice and no compensation.

The calls come amid community backlash over recent evictions at two regional tourist parks near Albany and Geraldton in Western Australia. Long-term residents say they were left vulnerable after the land was sold for redevelopment, with some given just 120 days to leave, despite living on the site for years or even decades.

In WA, park home communities can include both short-term tourist accommodation and permanent residences, but not all operators provide long-term leases to their permanent tenants. That means some residents are effectively living month to month, even when their park home is their only home.

Without stronger enforcement of existing laws, the Park Home Owners Association of WA said more vulnerable residents could be left exposed, especially as tourism operators look to maximise profits in high-demand locations. "It doesn’t bear thinking about," chairperson Terry Hintchcliffe told Yahoo News. 

"Particularly when the average age of people in that situation would probably be around 80. They’re not in a position where you can suddenly say, 'Alright, here’s a new part of my life coming on. I’ve got the financial wherewithal.' 

"They just don’t have that. So, it’s a tragic situation for a lot of people." The association is now calling for fixed-term leases to be made standard, and for more active compliance by the government to ensure park operators meet their legal obligations.

"What we’d like to see is the end of periodic leases, for a start," Hintchcliffe said. "Fixed-term leases need to be the way to go, so that people get the protections they need, and that operators are regularly inspected to ensure they are meeting the requirements of the legislation." 

For nearly a decade, Kevin Logan called Drummond Cove Holiday Park home. Source: ABC

Who lives in park communities?

Park home residents are a diverse group — from retirees seeking a quieter lifestyle to those on lower incomes with few other housing options. "You’ve got a whole gamut of people, from those where it’s what they can afford, through to people who have made retirement lifestyle choices," Hintchcliffe said. 

For nearly a decade, Kevin Logan, 83, called Drummond Cove Holiday Park home. Tucked along the coastline near Geraldton, about 400 kilometres north of Perth, the seaside cabin cost him $230,000 — an investment he believed would secure his future.

The park’s former owner assured him he could stay for life, so he settled in without a second thought.

But that sense of certainty was shattered in February, when Logan and a dozen other long-term residents were handed eviction notices, just a year after Wajarri Enterprises took over the site. They're expected to leave by August.

The recent controversy centres on parks with higher proportions of short-stay accommodation, where long-term residents may be fewer and more vulnerable. The Park Home Owners Association believes these recent cases may only be scratching the surface, estimating up to 200 residents across WA could be living without secure tenancy protections.

Residents at the Drummond Cove Holiday Park, 10 minutes north of Geraldton, are also facing the boot. Source: Drummond Cove

"In this particular case, I think there are about 20 at the Albany location and five or six at the Geraldton location," Hintchcliffe said. "But what our organisation has identified is probably between 100 and 200 people, because some parks don’t do the right thing and provide secure leases." 

Despite living in the same location for years, many residents are still on short-term or periodic leases, often due to a lack of awareness or legal support.

"There are a couple of reasons, usually down to ignorance, not only on the part of the person living in the caravan park, but they haven’t done due diligence and determined what their situation is," Hintchcliffe said. "They’ve just accepted it for years and years, and they don’t want to look into it. 

"But in some cases, too, it’s on the part of the park operator. Simply ignorance of the rules."

WA’s tenancy laws are strong on paper, but enforcement is a different story

"What we have here in WA is very robust laws ... but we don’t have a system that enforces those laws and backs things up," Hintchcliffe said.

"The laws give protection to residents if they care to take things to the courts or the State Administrative Tribunal. But most of the people involved are not in that sort of position. They’re often vulnerable people. They haven’t got the financial backing behind them to do that, even though they would almost certainly win." 

While residents can seek advice, few are equipped to fight legal battles on their own, especially those in their later years, and when a park is sold for redevelopment, long-term residents can be displaced with very little recourse, especially if they don’t hold a fixed-term lease.

"If they’re on a periodic lease, they only have to get — in theory — 120 days’ notice," Hintchcliffe said. “Which is not a lot of time to find somewhere new to live. Those with fixed-term leases are entitled to relocation support — but those without can lose everything.

Park Home Owners Association of WA chairperson Terry Hintchcliffe. Source: ABC

"If they’re not on a fixed-term lease, where they’re just on a periodic lease, then the 120-day rule applies," Hintchcliffe said. "And so potentially, if somebody is unable to do that, or the building is such that it really can’t be moved, then yeah, that means they lose their home."

Hintchcliffe says public pressure does make a difference. In Albany, community action initially delayed the council’s approval of the park’s sale.

"There was a groundswell move to have the council’s decision to allow the sale overturned," he said. "And for a month or so, that was quite successful, and it looked like the sale might fall through. But I don’t know the politics of it — at some point, the council did eventually approve it as well." 

For the Park Home Owners Association, the core issue is not a lack of legislation — it’s that the most vulnerable tenants can’t access the protection they already have.

"We are pushing hard on the point that the general residents in the caravan park are not capable and don’t have the wherewithal to use the law on their side," Hintchcliffe said. "They need government assistance, and they need government backing to enforce laws."

This article originally appeared on Yahoo News Australia at https://au.news.yahoo.com/elderly-aussies-face-eviction-as-caravan-park-crisis-sparks-urgent-calls-for-reform-063811936.html