Fees

When securing your apartment, your only commitment is a $5,000 fully-refundable deposit. This amount remains in a solicitor’s trust account. When you settle on your apartment, your deposit will be applied to the purchase price or refunded if you don’t proceed with settlement.

This is the price of the apartment that you are purchasing.

There is no stamp duty payable on the purchase of your apartment.

Each apartment contributes to the operation and maintenance of the village through the General Services Charges (GSC) and Maintenance Reserve Fund Contribution (MRFC).

These budgets are set each year, in line with the requirements of the Retirement Villages Act. Under this Legislation, budgets are based on cost recovery only, Aura cannot make a profit from these monthly fees.

Under legislation covering retirement villages, operators are not allowed to profit from the GSC.

What GSC it includes: 

• Gardening and lawn maintenance of the village
• Cleaning of village facilities
• Council rates – land and water
• Building insurance
• Operation and day-to-day maintenance of the village facilities
• Community management including the village management team

The MRFC is a separate budget from the GSC and covers maintaining and repairing (but not replacing) the village’s capital items.  

While the GSC covers many of the expenses you would encounter living in a residential property, you are still required to pay for your own water usage and electricity, and any personal expenses such as phone, internet, contents insurance and domestic or in-home support services.

At Somerset Indooroopilly, when you sell your apartment you receive the majority of capital gain accrued over time.

Like the majority of retirement villages, Somerset Indooroopilly retains a portion of the funds from the sale of your apartment when you exit our village.

The Deferred Management Fee (DMF) is calculated on the price you achieve when you sell your apartment and the length of time you reside in the village. At Somerset Indooroopilly, there is a maximum 32.5% DMF accrued over ten years.

This helps cover the cost of shared facilities and the replacement of capital items to keep the village looking as good as the day it was built. It also covers sales and marketing costs, the refurbishment of your apartment, and legal fees so you don’t have to worry about out of pocket expenses.

To compare our fee structure with other operators, please see below our DMF Comparison table.

To ensure there are no surprises when you exit our village, we do not charge any additional fees for sales and marketing or the reinstatement or refurbishment of your apartment.

We will pay both your legal fees (up to $1,100) and our own legal fees.

By law, we will also buy back your apartment if it has been on the market for 18 months to give you the certainty to plan your next move