[How did] Villas of Cave Creek Fire Starwood

How did they manage this? I thought all boards were controlled by Starwood staff...

moto x said:

How did they manage this? I thought all boards were controlled by Starwood staff...

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To make a long story short: [Corrected voluntary/mandatory statement]

Before this all happened, Villas of Cave Creek was managed by Starwood, but it was not in the SVN. It was a voluntary resort with an independent board.

Then, Starwood brought them into the SVN - but they also started putting pressure on the board to comply with Starwood's "recommendations."

That only lasted about 2 years and then the board terminated their management contract. The tipping point was a significant increase in maintenance fees, to pay for a resort wide renovation, that Starwood wanted.

Clarification: Even at the "Starwood controlled" resorts, they have boards that are elected by owners - in theory. But in reality, Starwood controls the nomination process, and then when they don't get a voting quorum, the sitting board fills the open spots - as recommended by Starwood.

So, there is usually only 1 Starwood employee on the boards, but because of the way the elections are handled, you end up with people who are very compliant to Starwood's wishes.

DeniseM said:

Then, Starwood brought them into the SVN, and made them a mandatory resort

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Based on my memory I don't believe they were made "mandatory".

DeniseM said:

To make a long story short:

Before this all happened, Villas of Cave Creek was not a mandatory resort. It was a voluntary resort with an independent board.

Then, Starwood brought them into the SVN, and made them a mandatory resort - but they also started putting pressure on the board to comply with Starwood's, "recommendations."

That only lasted about 2 years and then the board terminated their management contract. The tipping point was a significant increase in maintenance fees, to pay for a resort wide renovation, that Starwood wanted.

Clarification: Even at the "Starwood controlled" resorts, they have boards that are elected by owners - in theory. But in reality, Starwood controls the nomination process, and then when they don't get a voting quorum, the sitting board fills the open spots - as recommended by Starwood.

So, there is usually only 1 Starwood employee on the boards, but because of the way the elections are handled, you end up with people who are very compliant to Starwood's wishes.

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Very interesting. Thanks for the detailed response.

Let me think about this...

Sptung - Actually, you are right - thank you for jogging my memory.

They were managed by Starwood, but were not in the SVN. Starwood brought them into the SVN as a voluntary resort.

This is the reason I was (mistakenly) thinking about it being a mandatory resort: There were owners who re-qualified VCC deeds to reach 5 Star Elite Status, and when VCC left the SVN, they lost their Elite Status, and paid all that money for nothing.

***This is why I caution people about jumping into re-qualifying right now - we don't really know what is going to happen with VSE. Things could change, and someone could pay a lot of money to reach 5 Star Elite, and end up with a bunch of very expensive voluntary deeds and no Elite Status.

DeniseM said:

***This is why I caution people about jumping into re-qualifying right now - we don't really know what is going to happen with VSE. Things could change, and someone could pay a lot of money to reach 5 Star Elite, and end up with a bunch of very expensive voluntary deeds and no Elite Status.

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Plus, who knows what 5 Star Elite benefits will be maintained under the new management.

We were at Villas of Cave creek about 10 years ago and the resort was OK but the rooms needed major help. The unit layout was really bad even though the overall size of the units was OK.

SVN should be happy they are gone.

In 1999, Starwood acquired VCC as part of the Vistana acquisition. So, like WSJ Hillside aka Virgin Grand phase, which was able to wrest HOA control back into hands of non-SVO cronies, VCC had a history of running independently prior to SVO getting into the picture. It must have been quite a huge culture shock for them to one day operate as active board members with 100% control one day, and the next day being treated as rubber stampers.

There is very little to understand what specifically broke the camel's back, but what little I gleaned from the few threads seem to suggest that the Board was unhappy with Starwood's managing of contracts, which IMO means that they were awarding lucrative contracts to their fellow cronies instead of the lowest bidders.

Another thing also mentioned by the VCC board member was SVO's lack of transparency re delinquencies. In theory, the HOA "owns" delinquencies and should be able to rent them out in order to try and make owners whole on those unpaid MFs. In reality, that didn't/doesn't seem to be happening, or if it is, the HOA is getting far less than one would expect, especially at top tier resorts such as HRA and WKORV.

When VCC left SVO in 2011, it was following a painful run when we are all getting socked with hundreds of dollars of additional MFs to cover the delinquencies. It seems SVO did not give the board members a satisfactory explanation of what they were doing with those weeks, and that may have been enough for them to jump ship. Easier to do when you're used to having a homeowner-friendly, cost sensitive HOA, who still has a lot of influence with owners. Plus they had the advantage of not having a Starwood-picked board from inception (unlike WKORV, etc), which makes it nearly impossible for owners to boot out SVO/VSE, because the OA dictates that all uncast votes are awarded to the current board, to use at their discretion. That means that if you have a Starwood-controlled board on Day 1, absent a catastrophe, you will always have a Starwood/VSE-controlled board.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/starwood-to-acquire-vistana-inc-73613452.html

http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=155310