Three siblings.
One decision.
No shared set of facts.
Ryman’s promise is that it is all taken care of. For the resident, largely it is. For the three adult children in a group chat across two time zones, almost none of it is — and the part that is hardest is not the village. It is each other.
This is a concept for the family’s side: the answers they cannot find, and the disagreement no brochure has ever tried to help with.
An independent concept. Not affiliated with, endorsed by or commissioned by Ryman Healthcare. Every Ryman fact on this page is published by Ryman or on a public register, and cited. The family is invented.
“I’m the one doing this. I’ve seen the stairs. It has to be soon and it has to be near me.”
“Nobody has shown me what it actually costs over ten years. What comes back? I’m not signing something I can’t model.”
“I find out on Sunday what was decided on Thursday. I’m not against it. I’m just never in the room.”
The answers are already published.
In a document no family has ever opened.
Every New Zealand retirement village files a statutory disclosure statement on the Companies Office Retirement Villages Register. It is long, it is a PDF, and it contains the exact answers families spend months failing to get. Nothing here needs inventing — it needs reading.
The Act’s own prescribed wording says it is common for misunderstandings to arise “by residents and their families” about the legal interest, the exit, the fees for entering and moving and leaving, and the ongoing fees. The regulator has already written this brief.
7. Fees payable while you occupy the unit
7.1 The Weekly Fee is payable from the Commencement Date and continues until the date you permanently vacate the unit…
7.2 The Weekly Fee will increase annually on 1 July each year. The annual increase will be the same as the percentage increase in the after-tax New Zealand Superannuation Rate, based on the percentage increase for the previous 12-month period, 1 April to 31 March, and will be advised to you before 1 June each year…
8. Deferred management fee
8.1 The Deferred Management Fee accrues from the Commencement Date at the rate set out in the table below and is deducted from the Entry Payment on termination…
8.2 For the avoidance of doubt, the Deferred Management Fee is calculated on the Entry Payment and not on any capital gain…
“Just tell me what it costs.”
Same page.
The one decision aid ever trialled for this exact decision reduced a carer’s own decisional conflict significantly — and its authors reported that disagreements between family members were often left unresolved. Each person got clearer. The family still did not agree.
So this does the one thing that helps: it separates the arguments more information can settle from the arguments it never will. Fill it in as three people. It takes a minute.
These are facts. Someone is simply wrong.
And the answer to every one of them is published. Nobody has to win an argument.
These are values. Nobody is wrong.
More data will not move these, and treating them as factual disputes is what turns a decision into a rift. They need saying out loud, not solving.
The fact-versus-values split is Ottawa’s, from the Ottawa Personal Decision Guide for Two (Stacey, Lewis & O’Connor, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute & University of Ottawa) — “if you disagree on facts, get more information; if you disagree on what matters most, consider the other person’s views.” Their guide is free to use on condition it is cited and not altered, so this cites it and works alongside it rather than adapting it. What is added here: more than two people, a decision-specific question set, and the synthesis done for you instead of left in two columns of a PDF.
“What’s the deferred management fee?”
Depends who you are.
Ryman moved its standard deferred management fee, and said existing residents keep the terms they signed. That means two populations on different terms — so a single answer to this question is wrong for one of them. Any tool that quotes a percentage without first asking which cohort the family is in is not being helpful, it is being confidently wrong.
The terms they signed are the terms they keep
- Ryman has said current residents’ deferred management fees and fixed weekly fees will not change
- So the number in the original agreement is the number that matters, not today’s published rate
- The agreement is the source of truth, and the family may not have a copy
- First job of any agent here: find out which agreement, and say so before quoting anything
Ryman’s published standard is 30%
- Ryman states on its own site that its standard deferred management fee is calculated at 30% of the entry price
- It is payable when the resident permanently vacates, and it does not increase on a transfer to another unit or another Ryman village
- Ryman does not publish the accrual period, and that is a fair thing for a family to ask
- Reported separately: a move from 20% to “25 or 30 percent, depending on the initial entry price paid”
This section exists because it is the fastest way to lose a family’s trust. A number that is right for the brochure and wrong for their mother is worse than no number.
What this must never do.
This is a family deciding where their mother will live, sometimes in a week when she has just had a fall. The boundary is written before the feature, and the sales team does not get to move it.
It always
- Cites the document and the clause behind every number
- Says “this is not published” when it is not published, and offers a person
- Asks which agreement a resident is on before quoting any fee
- Works with no contact details, no account and no lead captured
- Lets a family read everything and leave without hearing from anyone
- Holds anything reaching a family for a named person at Ryman
It never
- Creates urgency — no countdowns, no “two villas left”, no scarcity of any kind
- Books a tour, takes a deposit, or moves anyone toward a signature
- Uses the words of a fall, a diagnosis or a bereavement to prompt a next step
- Touches a care record, a clinical note or anything myRyman holds
- Gives financial or legal advice, or substitutes for the independent lawyer the Act requires
- Takes a side between siblings, or scores one family member against another
What a pilot actually asks of you.
Most of it is your time rather than your money, and none of it touches care.
The approver — most likely in customer or resident experience. Every draft stops with them and nothing reaches a family until they say so. About two hours a week, reading drafts.
Six weeks on the family’s side of a single village: the guides moment through to the first fortnight after a move. Not the group, and nothing to do with care.
Your published guides and the disclosure statements that are already public. No resident data, no care records, no myRyman, nothing that writes. There is no integration in the pilot at all.
What an adviser may and may not say, and which cohort question comes first. Every rule on this page is a placeholder standing in for yours.
Scored on: answers a family got without waiting for a callback, drafts an adviser sent without rewriting, and whether a family said they felt less alone. Fail any line and we change the design or stop.
Agreed before any work starts, and it does not move. No figure is published here because it depends on the scope you pick.
Run the pilot.
Say yes to the six weeks above and add anything you would change first. Most pilots move a line or two before they start.
Opens your mail app to assembl@assembl.co.nz with your notes in it. Nothing is collected by this page.
- Six weeks, one village, the family’s side only
- Published documents — no resident or care data at all
- A named approver — nothing reaches a family without them
- A fixed fee, agreed in writing before anything starts
- Stop any time. You keep what was drafted