A retirement village provides accommodation, amenities and services to a people aged over 55.

Usually, entry into a retirement village involves:

• signing a residential tenancy agreement, or some other lease or licence;
• buying shares in the ownership of the village;
• "buying" a unit, subject to the administering body having the right or option to repurchase the unit; or
• "buying" the unit, where there are restrictions about the sale of the unit.

Retirement villages may not necessarily use the words 'retirement' or 'village' in their name. For example, a village may be called 'Bottlebrush Gardens'.   If you are not sure if a complex you are considering comes under the Retirement Villages Act 1992, ask the village operator or check with Landgate or Consumer Protection.

In Western Australia, a residential park (a park) is a place which provides land ‘sites’ for rent, usually to house a relocatable home such as a caravan or park home.

There are two types of tenants:

• ‘long-stay’ sites which can be occupied for more than three months and
• ‘short-stay’ sites for stays of less than three months.

Tenants who are staying longer than three months on a park should be located on a ‘longstay’ site instead of a ‘short-stay’ site.

Mixed parks have both long and short stay sites.  Other parks may contain long-stay sites only and may be called ‘lifestyle villages’.

Sometimes, lifestyle villages can also be retirement villages – if this is the case, they will be covered by the Retirement Villages Act 1992, and not by residential park laws.