[2009] Why Do We Shame People Out Of Walking Away?

dougp26364 said:

When you walk away from your obligation, me and all other owners who remain will have to pay for your decision. I mean literally have to pay.

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A clear response that has your own "me" self interests first and foremost.

dougp26364 said:

Why should I and others who honor their agreement be expected to pay for those who want to just walk away because it's convenient?

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It's your decision to choose to continue to pay.

What if it was the developer that choose to walk away and left 100's of non-paying units? Those costs too are billed out to all owners. Do you still choose to pay?

Will you wait unitl you are the last paying member?

Will you pay the entire budget or will you walk away.

Owners would not typically walk away if they can sell the unit for more than MFs. Rather than accepting annual 10% MF increases as a given (which increase the cost of ownership thus affecting resale prices negatively) owners should focus on fighting those increases to begin with. I am referring here to increases typically dictated by management companies like Starwood and Marriott that collect a percentage of the total MFs. Resort HOAs just rubber stamp those numbers. If more people realized the impact of MF increases on their equity (resale prices) perhaps they would care more...

Many owners don't realize that the true cost of ownership includes the MFs PLUS the loss (or gain) in their equity value during the year. When resale prices reach zero it is tough to avoid having owners walk away - not many people would actually pay money to get rid of a timeshare.

rights don't count unless they are enforced

rickandcindy23 said:

The whole owners paid a total of $2,950, while the timeshare owners paid $612 X 50 weeks= $30,600. We basically paid to replace their decks. Philip if we want to get money from them, we would have to get a lawyer.

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Check the statute of limitations and get a lawyer to take it on a contingency, sounds like a relatively easy lawsuit on several grounds.

DanCali said:

I am referring here to increases typically dictated by management companies like Starwood and Marriott that collect a percentage of the total MFs. Resort HOAs just rubber stamp those numbers.

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Than you are talking about an entities that has enough resource to do whatever damage they see fit to owner walk out. Unless it becomes a national issue, they will do just that.

You claim the good week owner tries to shame bad week owner stay so to pay their share. Have you tried to buy from developer? Good week usually has some premium. A good week and bad week I have see from a ski resort is 30k difference. Even on eBay, a good week and bad week in the same resort can easily make 6k difference (3k to pay to people to get rid of it). So, it is not that simple solution.

I believe point is trying to deal with this issue to start with. It still has its issue, but at least it will not give too heavy penalty on one bad decision. But for existing resort, unless you stop the current operation than redistribute it. It is what it is. Thus, it really depends on the HOA.

For resort that no longer controlled by developer, both sides will have to look at their options and decide what is the best approches for themselves that cause the least loss. If most owners walk out, the resort will have less choices they can take, and more likely will not operate any more. If enough % of owner decide to stay around, or if the resort can easily sell the week to new owner, the HOA will be strong, and you should not try to shame them to take their action they decide to deal with owner walk out.

So when you encourage owner just walk out, you can be only trying to encourage those owner from resorts that controlled by owner HOA and does not willing to take strong actions, or may not have too much reason to continue operate to walk out (since they will more likely get away with no consequence). The owner belongs to the resort that controlled by HOA may not be that lucky, and the owner that belongs to strong HOA may only force those HOA to take strong stand on it. Is that what you like to see?

Not try to shame you.

I do know one of my resort can cease operation by 40% of approval.

Jya-ning

So basically everyone will have to answer the next post the way they believe is right... in my mind, here is how I see it:

We know that in some cases a resort will take deedbacks.

We also know that if someone does decide to quit paying on their timeshare, that they will suffer a credit hit - which we know can be repaired over time (in some cases, people are repurchasing homes after foreclosure in just a few years).

We also know that it is very unlikely that a resort is going to go through the foreclosure process and chase after somebody for the balance for the rest of debtors' lives.

We also know that in over 50% of the cases, sending someone down the charity or the eBay path is not going to be the answer. If someone still owes money on the original loan, then that 50% jumps to over 90%. Not only will someone be out the eBay listing fees (over $50 currently), but it will be a major waste of their time even looking into it and/or setting up the ad.

We also know that in this economy, there is a huge number of people that are truly hurting right now.

So, I guess everyone will have to answer the next poster according to their own individual conscience... and I can understand either way. Do you want to help someone, (or do you want to try and protect your own interest and hope your maintenance fees don't go up)?

Interesting dilemma!

That's how I see it folks... agree or disagree?

ace2000 said:

So basically everyone will have to answer the next post the way they believe is right...

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It is always the case, as I remember. There is no one answer fit all. There is no preprint result. On the other hand, most of the people here do own and still own timeshare. So you should be able to guess your majority answers will be like.

Jya-Ning

ace2000 said:

We also know that it is very unlikely that a resort is going to go through the foreclosure process and chase after somebody for the balance for the rest of debtors' lives.

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I aslo know some resorts just send it to collect agent. Especially those Mexico ones.

ace2000 said:

We also know that in this economy, there is a huge number of people that are truly hurting right now.

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Very low % of owner think about walk away unless they are hurting economically even in a good time. There are people that just can and unwilling to pay if there is anything not fit their way. But most of the owners are not fit in that model. But as internet, you can never tell these apart.

On the other hand, if people do hurt badly, most will be able to walk away with managable damage. There credit already ruin. They don't have any valuable even if you try to collect, they have less wage that maybe not paying enough or barely make a living. So it does not matter what action they take. That is the reason walk away from home usually may work since it is most people's only assest.

People at the borderline do need to think more. But more likely they will walk away better, because they usually in the path of downhill. Their credit score is in the process of ruin anyway, and they are having difficulty to make end meet. but it will have to really go through each person's detail to figure that out. Most of them maybe able to pass through with just some temp. arrangement.

People with great resouce, this is just inconvient to them, they should be explore more, because they have more choices. And they do have more consequence to consider.

I will go with help people with my self interest covered.

Jya-Ning

Jya-Ning said:

I will go with help people with my self interest covered.

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yeppers. I can't afford to bail anyone out.

Jya-Ning said:

Than you are talking about an entities that has enough resource to do whatever damage they see fit to owner walk out. Unless it becomes a national issue, they will do just that.

You claim the good week owner tries to shame bad week owner stay so to pay their share. Have you tried to buy from developer? Good week usually has some premium. A good week and bad week I have see from a ski resort is 30k difference. Even on eBay, a good week and bad week in the same resort can easily make 6k difference (3k to pay to people to get rid of it). So, it is not that simple solution.

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What I claim is that even a "bad" week was worth something sometime in the past. As long as there is a positive resale value owners can exit by selling but once weeks become worthless it is hard to get out of the cycle where owners just walk away from obligations, whether we like it or not.

Putting economic cycles aside, the one thing that reduces valuations for all owners are MF increases which are disproportionate to inflation costs (because it reduces the advantage to owning versus renting). Most if not all owners just accept this as the reality of owning and without realizing that the value of their equity is affected.

As MFs rise, resale values drop and the "bad" weeks (whether because of season, or deeded view etc) are the first to become worthless - so now what can you do when you have an owner who wants to sell? They can try to sell for $1 for a long time and still be unsuccessful... You may expect them to pay $3000 for a PCC to take the resort off their hands, but even then it will get passed to an unsuspecting buyer for $1 who will realize soon enough the week is worthless and be in the same position not too far down the line. Some (or most) people would rather walk away than pay some shady company they don't trust money to take the resort off their hands.

The best solution to the problem is to preventing it to begin with by keeping MFs in check. Low MFs will sustain resale value. Unfortunately, many timeshares are controlled by developers who have conflicting interests. Once you get to a point where a resort has many worthless weeks it becomes a difficult situation because there will always be owners who want to sell and if they can't some will just walk away. Lowering MFs to raise resale values is extremely difficult. Sometimes the solution is replacing a greedy management company controlled by the developer, but that's not easy to do either. Zero resale value means that there is not much value to owning so I would question the long term viability of a resort that gets into that situation.

DanCali said:

The best solution to the problem is to preventing it to begin with by keeping MFs in check. Low MFs will sustain resale value. Unfortunately, many timeshares are controlled by developers who have conflicting interests. Once you get to a point where a resort has many worthless weeks it becomes a difficult situation because there will always be owners who want to sell and if they can't some will just walk away. Lowering MFs to raise resale values is extremely difficult. Sometimes the solution is replacing a greedy management company controlled by the developer, but that's not easy to do either. Zero resale value means that there is not much value to owning so I would question the long term viability of a resort that gets into that situation.

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Dan, agreed. And once the resorts stop thinking of their owners like blind sheep, the better off ALL owners will be. If enough people do start giving their weeks back, doesn't that send a message? Isn't that beneficial for all owners?

You could argue that it's the ones that DO continue to pay (and make no fuss), that are hurting the overall timeshare industry.

MF increases which are disproportionate to inflation costs (because it reduces the advantage to owning versus renting)

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The reduction in value does not necessarily follow from disproportionate increases. At some properties, rental values also increase disproportionally---indeed, many discretionary leisure-time purchases (theme parks, sporting events, etc.) tend to increase prices faster than inflation.

I'm not entirely sure how this continues without collapse, but it seems to from where I sit.

Paying for a now worthless brand name is crazy move

ace2000 said:

Dan, agreed. And once the resorts stop thinking of their owners like blind sheep, the better off ALL owners will be. If enough people do start giving their weeks back, doesn't that send a message? Isn't that beneficial for all owners?

You could argue that it's the ones that DO continue to pay (and make no fuss), that are hurting the overall timeshare industry.

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Now that is turning the logic on it's head!

But I do agree that a critical issue is the blind conformance to the ever increasing, and in many cases unfounded, rises in annual fees simply imposed by the "name" brands that automatically recover their guaranteed profit level as well as unproductive (to the owners) payments for overhead and markups on any work contracted at the resorts. It is long past the time when the value of such branding is greater than the costs when you see annual fees twice the rental value and the resale value of a "$20,000+" timeshare week go unclaimed at a hundred dollars or less. Reining in these groups either by rewriting contracts or bringing in truly independent management and HOA Boards would be a great start toward fixing this problem.

DanCali said:

The best solution to the problem is to preventing it to begin with by keeping MFs in check.

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You are compare MF to hotel rental price. But hotel rental price are usually different for different season. Even with that, they sometime subside the price using the rental they collected from prime season. Also, hotel has more power to retain earning if they see cloud in the future, or investing these earning more aggressively. Your HOA has not law to do that. And if the developer controlled HOA, I personally would not want that to happen either, even Warrent Buffet is the HOA president. Your HOA has to reflect the exact charge they have to deal with.

So in order to keep the MF in place, you will need the resort agree to change its fee structure to charge different for different season. And even that could change. A shift in the economic like we have, will cost the room unrentalable although it can be rent in the pass. currently, I think the hotel occupancy are down from 70% to 55% in general sometime in this year, now it probably will be 60%.

I believe that is what the point is doing (change MF fee structure based on season), and I know some week resorts also do adjust for that. And some resorts may eventually change to that model, but it will require some big push.

On the other hand, for the resort that has not been changed, it usually because the law that define how to change this are prevent them (and maybe people in control has no desire to push the change, but it usually are rare). Or because most of the time, the developer still in controling. In other word, majority of these situation the owner may not get good result by walk out.

Even with 65% of occupancy rate, most hotel can easily manage. And TS has over 80% occupancy rate even in this economic difficult time.

Hotel can shut down say 10% of their units. If you are owner of these 10%, will you willingly allow that happen?

When you say these week has no value, it is because of people don't want to learn how to get rid of them, or don't have the will to get rid of them, so they pay PCC to get rid of them. And PCC just flood eBay with $1. Than eventually, with economic downtime, PCC found that they just can not get clsoing money, so you will found that PCC just does not even take those weeks. At this moment, most house has no value, or less value than its mortgage, especially those bought for invest purpose, and the owner certainly can control their MF.

Just look at Cindy's TS, unless you can figure out a way to push some changes so the resort can be survive and maintain, the MF will in times higher than the rental cost.

Jya-Ning

bnoble said:

The reduction in value does not necessarily follow from disproportionate increases. At some properties, rental values also increase disproportionally---indeed, many discretionary leisure-time purchases (theme parks, sporting events, etc.) tend to increase prices faster than inflation.

I'm not entirely sure how this continues without collapse, but it seems to from where I sit.

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Sure - you can say that MF increases disproportionate to rental cost increases (rather than CPI) reduce resale values, but you get the idea...

Average hotel room prices have gone down over the past few years because of the economy, competition, hotwire, priceline etc - yet hotels continue to function by cutting costs and taking other measures. Timeshare owners are a captive audience so we keep seeing MF increases. How many timeshare properties had lower or even flat MFs over the past 3-5 years? Some Starwood properties have seen around 50% MF increases over the past 3 years, and not necessarily only at properties with worthless weeks and delinquent owners. As the advantage to owning erodes, resale prices fall. As weeks become worthless the problems just begin...

If HOAs kept MFs in check to sustain the advantage of ownership (and positive resale values) this situation would not arise.

Jya-Ning said:

You are compare MF to hotel rental price...


Even with 65% of occupancy rate, most hotel can easily manage. And TS has over 80% occupancy rate even in this economic difficult time.

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A TS needs 100% of owners to pay, even if they don't use it. So occupancy rate at timeshares is not comparable to hotels.

Sure, hotels are very different but they are a good proxy to rental costs. Does it make sense to pay $1600 in MFs for 1 week a 2BR in Orlando if you can get a hotel suite for less than $200/night without the hassles of ownership and with the ability to cancel up to 1 day in advance? Not for most people...

You can use any other proxy for rental costs you want - e.g. renral prices on RedWeek... I don't think owners at Westin Kaanapali are renting for more today than they did 3 years ago. But their MFs went from $1500 to $2500. That is just not sustainable so resale prices went from $40K to $10K - trying to blame it on the economy is ignoring the real problem imo.

Jya-Ning said:

When you say these week has no value, it is because of people don't want to learn how to get rid of them, or don't have the will to get rid of them, so they pay PCC to get rid of them. And PCC just flood eBay with $1. Than eventually, with economic downtime, PCC found that they just can not get clsoing money, so you will found that PCC just does not even take those weeks. At this moment, most house has no value, or less value than its mortgage, especially those bought for invest purpose, and the owner certainly can control their MF.

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When I say they have no value I mean that the weeks don't usually sell even for $1 on eBay. What I argue is that some people would not pay a PCC at all - they would just stop paying MFs and walk away if they can't sell. And if the "better" solution is to pay a PCC $3000 to get rid of a liability - how sustainable is that once the next owner comes in?

Jya-Ning said:

Just look at Cindy's TS, unless you can figure out a way to push some changes so the resort can be survive and maintain, the MF will in times higher than the rental cost.

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That is a tough situation and I'm not sure it is sustainable - what may have been a good proposition 20 years ago may not be a good one today. I believe Cindy said the HOA President has a similar opinion...

Do you just keep the resort operational to avoid realizing losses or to keep just a few owners happy? Do you force everyone else to pay the bills? I'm not sure how this resort got there but once any resort has worthless weeks it's tough to fix. Better to avoid getting there.

Have you read RHC thread? Some tug has to fight the reality that most of RHC's contract has no bid on eBay, and in the end manage to get them out of her hand.

I believe if you just put something on eBay run 7 day bid, chances of none take is higher than you can image. I constantly see shoe, cloth get no bid on it, than does not make them no value or unable to get rid.

DanCali said:

Do you just keep the resort operational to avoid realizing losses or to keep just a few owners happy? Do you force everyone else to pay the bills? I'm not sure how this resort got there but once any resort has worthless weeks it's tough to fix. Better to avoid getting there.

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If just a few owners, the resort will not be operatable. I constantly see about 5% to 10% uncollectable money in the budget of TS resort. So, resort does not need 100% payee to maintain operation.

Just go to any new resort, sit on their sale presentation, and compare their MF to what you think you can get from off season rent, you will find some are very close to be over. And the only reason they are not over is because they are new, there is no unit has unpaid MF, and the developer has no reservation on it, but they are mainatin the ground and club house.

Even for point resort, I have been to places at certain time where the occupancy rate is like 5% or 10%. And I am pretty sure even if they goes to close to free, the resort may not get filled.

List any vacation places that just for pure vacation has no time slot less than 50% of the usage. You will find these places prob. are like DC, NY, San Fansico. Have to be either captial, or top 10% in the population. So there are more stuff to do. Which will make build and maintain at high cost to start with. And most of the time, there is more than just vacation purpose. Not even most of the travel places you can think will be able to do that (Hawaii be one). And for those places, if you go to priceline.com, you maybe able to find cheap alernatives from time to time. Most of the time, you are trying to have certain style than just a hotel room.

You will not be able to find any place that can collect same amount of MF. And that should not be the expecation.

Not in HOA board, so can not tell you if I will force people to pay or not. Each resort is different, and they have to find the best way for them to survive and serve most owner's interest, not just a few owner's interest.

On the other hand, people do sign the contract no matter they bought from developer or resell, so if they plan to walk out, they should be prepared that there will be consequence with it. Sometimes, the consequence is much less compare to what their own situation, than they should walk out. Sometime, they are in much better situation, and they have to decide if they are willing to take that consequence or not. There is no good or bad, just personal's own consideration. But I can not parise to give people free pass if most of the owner are trying to keep their promise, no matter if you are against a developer controlled HOA or an owner controlled HOA.

Cindy also need to explore the possible route to shut down the resort operation. People usually get into bad time and end up in big mess because they are not prepare when bad time come, even when there are signs. If the keep maintain is an issue, and with most owner getting older, an exit maybe in many's mind, thus an owner controlled HOA should explore all the possibility no matter what feeling they have or how unwilling they feel, so the members can see what is their options.

Jya-Ning

This discussion is about morality, and this is something we all have to decide for ourselves, just as we at Twin Rivers decided to take weeks back from owners who are finding it a burden and never use their weeks. That is a moral decision to take those weeks back, but that decision doesn't come without consequences. The owners, including those of us on the board, are now stuck with that extra little expense because someone deeds back their week. That is also a moral issue; we are choosing to burden others with our decision to take back weeks.

Neither seems 100% right to me.

Jya-Ning, ending Twin Rivers as a timeshare seems to be the best answer, but we would have to force those who love their ski and prime summer weeks, which they believe have GREAT $$$ VALUE (though they are cheap on eBay) because they overpaid for them and felt they would increase in value. This is how the developer sold those weeks way back when. How do you get ski week owners to sell their weeks for a few thousand $$ each, when they paid something close to $10K? They have no idea what value that timeshare truly has in the real world, and they don't have the means to find out, because many owners don't use the internet. These older people also get calls from scumbag upfront fee companies who tell them how "valuable" their weeks are. Many have been taken in by this sales pitch, even though we warn them regularly not to believe it.

ctyatty said:

Check the statute of limitations and get a lawyer to take it on a contingency, sounds like a relatively easy lawsuit on several grounds.

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The COA is the condo owners' association, and we are a part of it. The COA decides all matters of the exteriors and the clubhouse and grounds. Two of the board members from the IOA, interval owners' association, sit on that board of five. The board members of the COA voted to do the lopsided assessment. It seems that suing would be suing ourselves, in a way, even though the past board members that made this bad decision are now gone.

There is some sort of law that protects board members for making bad decisions, simply because they thought it was the only solution at the time. This is according to the whole owners' new management company (different from our management company). The fact that our old management company (which was always the same management company that the entire place had for 28 years) was the entity that suggested the lopsided assessment, that may make them liable for not following law. We don't know who is at fault, or who the court would decide was at fault, but we would have to fight 34 whole owners as 1,300 timeshare week owners. We paid more than 90% of the expense of the upgrades to the resort for those upgrades in 2002-2004, but now we have a crisis with owners bailing on worthless weeks, while the whole owners have increasing property values... it drives me crazy.

What we could do with $15K per unit right now. We could literally make the resort a Silver Crown in a few months.

rickandcindy23 said:

Jya-Ning, ending Twin Rivers as a timeshare seems to be the best answer, but we would have to force those who love their ski and prime summer weeks, which they believe have GREAT $$$ VALUE (though they are cheap on eBay) because they overpaid for them and felt they would increase in value. This is how the developer sold those weeks way back when. How do you get ski week owners to sell their weeks for a few thousand $$ each, when they paid something close to $10K? They have no idea what value that timeshare truly has in the real world, and they don't have the means to find out, because many owners don't use the internet. These older people also get calls from scumbag upfront fee companies who tell them how "valuable" their weeks are. Many have been taken in by this sales pitch, even though we warn them regularly not to believe it.

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Show them the rent amount around the area, the trend, compare to your resort. And the worse case scenario, that assume all owner with the MF greater than the rental cost will walk out, and none take over it. So the remaining will have to take over. That will give them some rough idea. If they don't mind to pay, the resort can continue to work. You just shut it down completely during off season except the leave few people to make sure nobody break in, or the resort has few units running just in case someone want to rent it. The end result may not be worse than you think.

I would think any operation will do that every few years, and try to find ways to make it work or find a way to stop the operation without hurting the interest of its investor.

It is kind of big push. I would think you will also do that only when you see the trend continue. And you will also have several alternatives.

The owner are part of the Board. Although you are handling day to day business, that does mean they should not know what the reality is, and they may willing to provide some more creative idea or method to handle it.

By the way, sometimes, if the resort no longer become TS, its value maybe much higher than as it stays in TS. Although now will not be the good time for that happen, but with economic start to turn around and go up again, it will. Only if you keep it as TS, that eBay value will be the value you compare as the fire sale price.

Jya-Ning

Add one possibility you may want to think it a little, you have a small resort, may not be good for big corporation, but you maybe enough for some small company for some retreat or training purpose to fill some mud season. Which may require you to find some connections, and all your owners may willing to help to find connections.

The hotel world isn't the timeshare/condo financial model

DanCali said:

Sure - you can say that MF increases disproportionate to rental cost increases (rather than CPI) reduce resale values, but you get the idea...

Average hotel room prices have gone down over the past few years because of the economy, competition, hotwire, priceline etc - yet hotels continue to function by cutting costs and taking other measures. Timeshare owners are a captive audience so we keep seeing MF increases. How many timeshare properties had lower or even flat MFs over the past 3-5 years? Some Starwood properties have seen around 50% MF increases over the past 3 years, and not necessarily only at properties with worthless weeks and delinquent owners. As the advantage to owning erodes, resale prices fall. As weeks become worthless the problems just begin...

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The hotel operational model is not a condo or timeshare type. Hotels are free to raise and lower annual "fees" (room rates) on a daily basis if they want. A resort/condo has to operate for all seasons at all times that the buyers have purchased. They are tied by specific laws and regulations about how fees can be assessed (the worst being the horrible requirement that all weeks be assessed the same which seems to mean those with the most in demand weeks are actually being subsidized and has directly led to owner fallout for the costly but far less use/trade value weeks) and that they are non-profits in most cases. Systems such as points that do allow Associations to tailor fees to reflect use value are often tough to get in place retroactively, may not be embraced by all owners and often carry an unfair high price tag from a developer looking to help their bottom line not the health of the resort.

Also we know that the expectations for a timeshare - larger rooms, more on site amenities, kitchens, multi-bedrooms, etc most hotels do not have to deal with or pay for. While they Sort of compete for the guests the whole system is completely different for a number if reasons. It is also ideally two different target audiences. The (again hopefully) temporary issue of rentals being so depressed that a hotel room actually competes with a 1 or 2 bedroom condo in price. It isn't a market where timeshare/condos which also don't have the marketing support can compete with.

ace2000 said:

John, I'd like to pose my question to you also... what if the value of your home dropped to less than half of your loan value and you HAD to move or you could no long afford to make the payments? What would you do in a case like this?

Nobody (except Doug) has answered that question... A lot of people talk about an obligation being an obligation, but I'm willing to bet over 90% of you all would walk away. Fortunately, I'm not in that situation, but I sure feel badly for those who are. And I completely understand whatever choice anyone would make in that scenario. And to take it a step further into the timeshare realm... many of the timeshare purchases out there have plunged down to nothing. Hmmmm...

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I too will answer your question. If you honestly can't make the loan payments, then you talk to your creditors. If you can't come to terms with them, then yes perhaps you "walk away." But when you do that, you may face forclosure (and the bad credit rating that goes along with it), or perhaps you come to an agreement, and the bank cancels your debt - which means you now have a load of taxable income, and owe taxes on it, and since you couldn't make house payments, you probably can't afford the tax bill.

But the real issue is that most people asking these questions here are NOT in that situation. They have decided their timeshares are no longer "affordable" and don't want to pay. For these people it is not a question of paying the MF vs food on the table. Many of these same people pay upwards of $100 monthly for their cable bills, their cell phones, high speed internet access. They are making choices and setting priorities... if they moved to a lesser cable plan, used dial-up access, signed up for a smaller cell plan, perhaps they could "afford" the maintenance fees on their timeshare.

If you want to compare this to a home ownership situation, perhaps you should compare it to a condo. What happens when a condo owner doesn't pay the condo fees? The association places a lein on the property, and the other owners foot the bill. If there is no mortgage, the individual owner still owns the condo. Sure, the association can try to forclose, but that just means they have to sell the condo, and split the costs among the other owners.

If a timeshare owner still owes money to the developer, and it is the purchase fees that you plan to walk away from, that would be like your scenario (and ownership would likely revert to the developer). But if the unit is paid off, and you're only talking about the annual fees, we're talking an entirely different situation, not analogous to your scenario.

rickandcindy23 said:

Jya-Ning, ending Twin Rivers as a timeshare seems to be the best answer, but we would have to force those who love their ski and prime summer weeks, which they believe have GREAT $$$ VALUE (though they are cheap on eBay) because they overpaid for them and felt they would increase in value. This is how the developer sold those weeks way back when. How do you get ski week owners to sell their weeks for a few thousand $$ each, when they paid something close to $10K?

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It would help if single units, instead of the entire timeshare development, could be converted to whole ownership but I suppose specific unit/week deeding prevents that from being an option.

It looks like weeks based deeded ownership prevents rational 'end game' decisions. Does TS closure aways require 100% of the owners to agree? Is the required threshold just a bylaws issue or is it state law?

This just morphed from a single owner 'walking away' to all owners collectively walking.

RickandCindy:
Once you take back one TS you have to legally extend that courtesy to all owners. This is a legal issue now, not a moral one anymore.
The same goes for the SA , all owners have to treated equally on a week basis.Whole owners can't be given a special deal.

Rick and Cindy

rickandcindy23 said:

The COA is the condo owners' association, and we are a part of it. The COA decides all matters of the exteriors and the clubhouse and grounds. Two of the board members from the IOA, interval owners' association, sit on that board of five. The board members of the COA voted to do the lopsided assessment. It seems that suing would be suing ourselves, in a way, even though the past board members that made this bad decision are now gone.

There is some sort of law that protects board members for making bad decisions, simply because they thought it was the only solution at the time. This is according to the whole owners' new management company (different from our management company). The fact that our old management company (which was always the same management company that the entire place had for 28 years) was the entity that suggested the lopsided assessment, that may make them liable for not following law. We don't know who is at fault, or who the court would decide was at fault, but we would have to fight 34 whole owners as 1,300 timeshare week owners. We paid more than 90% of the expense of the upgrades to the resort for those upgrades in 2002-2004, but now we have a crisis with owners bailing on worthless weeks, while the whole owners have increasing property values... it drives me crazy.

What we could do with $15K per unit right now. We could literally make the resort a Silver Crown in a few months.

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Congratulations on being elected to the board at your resort. You might be in a position to make a big difference there, but I wouldn't settle for silver, go for gold. I think a resorts value and upkeep is all about management, maintenance, and of course the board.

To keep this thread on subject, let me say I have no problem with owners walking away, if the resort does not provide value for them. I certainly wouldn't expect someone that owns an offseason week to supplement the cost of my red week, when they can rent the week for 1/2 the cost of their mf.

To compare mf with rental fees doesn't make sense to me either, unless to determine if the resort offers value for you. You are the owner!

I don't think it costs significantly less to manage a resort in central Missouri than it does at a beach, or a ski resort. Sure the ski week and the beach front has more value, but you paid for that upfront when you purchased that week. From the example I cite take the mf x 50 (cost of upkeep for one unit for 1 yr) and compare with your maintenance fees in the same manner. If there is a significant difference, you might want to question where that difference went, and of course we all know the answer to that one. I don't think the owners of the poor weeks, who bail, are at the root of the problem. The example is in central Missouri (ouch) and remember there is certainly more poor weeks there than either the ski or beachfront wks.

This resort has an owner hoa and a board who hired a manager not a management company. the resort just finished a $600,000 upgrade, and the resort looks "new" inside and out. It is rated gold laural by II. The unit I am familiar with has all new appliances and furnishings. These up grades were entirely paid out of reserves, no special assessment to the owners. The appliances, sleeper sofa, etc. are replaced every 7 yrs. The mfs are assessed by the sq. ft., The mf for a 2 bd. 1050' (smaller 2 bd.) is $319 no increase this yr. but an increase of $9.00 from 2 yrs ago.

If your maintence fees were somewhat in line with these, how do you think it would affect the value of your timeshare, and the mf delinquency rate? Some of these corporate management companies reminds me of corporate America, where management acts like owners, and there isn't a lot the real owners can do about it! Oh- I guess they are the same! A WELL MANAGED RESORT, WITH AN OWNER BOARD, WILL MAINTAIN VALUE, KEEP MAINTENANCE FEES LOW, AND DELIQUENCY RATES DOWN.

I ALSO own at an escapes resort, which I consider pretty nice, but I would have to rate the one in Mo. slightly better. Escapes is developer managed and still represents value to me, if it didn't I would bail one way or another.

Cindy: This post is not directed to you or your resort, but rather my feeling about the general discussion. Only the following is directed to you:

This resort also has some whole and multiple wk owners, but I don't know any details. The resort also forecloses on delinquent mf owners, but I'm sure there is no consequence for the former owner. These are listed for sale in the annual newsletter.( I believe there were 40 listed out of 2500 owners) All listed are poor wks.
Owners who want to sell there units are also listed(19). If you have any interest in further information on the management aspect send me a pm, and
I will send you the last 2 news letters which includes a detailed budget. From the newsletter you can also get information on how to contact the manager for answers to further questions you might have. Just tell her a very impressed owner gave you the information. Good luck with the transformation of your resort, into one that all owners will be proud of. YOU CAN DO IT!

JDF said:

Congratulations on being elected to the board at your resort. You might be in a position to make a big difference there, but I wouldn't settle for silver, go for gold. I think a resorts value and upkeep is all about management, maintenance, and of course the board.

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No, Gold resort does not add value. It just means you will spend more. And with only few units, it means every $1 spend will give you $.1 return.

The only reason she want silver is because when she talk to RCI to convert her resort to RCI point, RCI says they need to be silver. Which I find it wierd. Just simple pull RCI directory, in VA, and I saw Atrium Resort (#3657) is point resort, yet it is no rate.

Jya-Ning