Retirement villages are billed as worry-free independence — but many have few options once they move in

No pets without permission, no smoking in your own home, no visitors for more than a month and no garden decorations without consent. Mandatory medical examinations and big but hard-to-understand financial consequences. Welcome to life inside some of Australia's retirement villages.

Retirement villages hawk themselves as offering residents a worry-free life of independence, low maintenance and security. But dozens of resident contracts examined by the ABC reveal a pattern of tight control — some even demand approval for every pet except fish in a tank.

Some include a long list of costs for everything from insuring the workers who trim the hedges, to exit fees and compulsory renovations of your villa when you leave. The contracts, which can run to 149 pages, also govern how fees that are charged when a resident leaves a village are calculated.

When they leave, residents are usually entitled to a refund of what they paid to get in — minus what is called a 'deferred management fee', plus a list of other charges including the cost of renovating the property. Some current and former residents and their families describe these fees as a financial trap.

The investigation by Adele Ferguson, Ben Butler and Chris Gillett for ABC Investigations drew on analysis of dozens of contracts, interviews with residents and their families, and examination of the regulatory framework governing the sector.

The reporting revealed a pattern of tight control and complex financial arrangements that left many residents feeling trapped — unable to leave without suffering significant financial loss, and unable to exercise the independence they had been promised.