Changes to the Aged Care Act 1997 (Cth) which came into effect earlier this year mean that approved providers wishing to transfer allocated places or provisionally allocated places will no longer receive a notice of approval from the Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Health. Basically, no news is good news.

An approved provider now wishing to transfer allocated places needs to give a transfer notice to the Secretary. The deadline is 60 days before the proposed transfer day if the transferee is an approved provider, or 90 days before the proposed transfer day if the transferee is not an approved provider.

Click here to access the new streamlined transfer notice which has been recently released by the Department of Health.

If the Secretary has concerns about the transfer, the Secretary may issue a ‘notice to resolve’ to the transferor and transferee within 28 days after receiving the transfer notice.

The ‘notice to resolve’ will:

• specify the issue of concern, who needs to resolve the issue and what action to take;
• invite the transferee and transferor to make submissions within 28 days after receiving the ‘notice to resolve’; and
• state that if the Secretary has remaining concerns, the Secretary may issue a ‘veto notice’.

The Secretary may issue a ‘veto notice’ rejecting the transfer at least 7 days before the proposed transfer day. A transfer will not occur if such a notice is issued.

If the Secretary has not issued a ‘notice to resolve’ or a ‘veto notice’, the transfer is effective on the proposed transfer day in the transfer notice. However, if the Secretary has issued a ‘notice to resolve’, the transfer is effective on the 29^th day after the proposed transfer day in the transfer notice.

The same process and deadlines apply for the transfer of provisionally allocated places.