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.
Perhaps one option would be to do what Torpical Breeze did out of necessity, when rebuilding several years ago. The HOA owned 30-40% of the inventory, spread fairly evenly through the year, in various units, but did not own all the deeds to any one unit. To reduce the cost of rebuilding the resort, the total number of units was reduced, and owners of weeks in the units that were eliminated were given replacement units owned by the HOA. By doing something similar, perhaps a few individual units could be converted to whole ownership.
Depending how this is done, it could be expensive – redeeding 80 or so units (40 to the HOA, 40 from the HOA to individual owners), but in our case it was done as an amendment to the timeshare plan.
The amended Condo Declaration is available online
here (Bay County Florida, book 2462, page 742).
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.
There is no such legal obligation. The HOA board has a fiduciary responsibility to the owners, and must make the decision based on what is best for the owners as a whole. If an individual owner has no way of paying the fees, it may be in the HOA's best interest to take the week back. But if another owner asks to have his week taken back a week later, the HOA is not obligated to do so. If anything, the board is obligated to consider whether this owner is asking for a deedback out of convenience, rather than trying to sell the week. If the HOA is certain the fees will end up being paid, it is their obligation to NOT accept a deedback.
If you take a look at the MF fees at any timeshare it is total fraud:
You have quality condo's in NYC and Miami Beach that have monthly MF fees
for $1000-$2000 these are luxury buildings with all the amenities as Starwood with the pools and everything and that also includes taxes or under $700 a week for a two bedroom condo with taxes. I know someone who bought a condo in Miami beach real luxury and MF fees went up to $3000 a month from $1000 because people did not pay or because they had a lot of foreclosures or $750 a week.
At the Starwood resorts did you see how much of the MF fees go to room cleaning ? I think over $200 a week ? For one cleaning meanwhile if you want a cleaning they charge you $65.
Why as owners can we not find out the exact amount of owners that do not pay ? and the extra paying owners should get extra time. There is a homeowners association but the are useless since they are Starwood. There has to be a way to audit these timeshares and see where the money goes.
First, the maintenance fees at a timeshare will always be higher than 50x the fees in a whole ownership condo. Consider what is included in those fees that is often not included for a whole-owner. Furnishings, utilities, weekly cleaning (which costs more than that mid-week cleaning because it is more thorough), front desk management, reservations staff... most condos I'm familiar with don't come with furniture, dishes, linens, or many of the other items included in timeshare maintenance fees.
As for the number of defaulted owners, each of my resorts has a line item for uncollectable fees. Divide that by the fee per unit, and you know exactly how many units are expected to be in default.
How about the developer... not their fault? How about the regulators?
So people who bought because they believed what they were told about stable MFs should be held accountable for the rest of their lives? Pay $3000 in MFs when they were paying $1300 5-6 years ago? With no end to MF increases in sight? Forego watching cable and cell phones to have that overpriced "prepaid" vacation once a year?
If we were dealing with honest developers and salespeople I may be more sympathetic to that argument. Since very few can point to salespeople who were remotely honest with them, I don't think the buck stops with owners. I also can't blame owners who walk away from their obligations if they cannot sell their week even for $1 and if the resort won't take it back. If an asset is completely illiquid and you want out, what choices are there? I don't consider paying PCCs thousands of dollars realistic for most.
Stable MFs -> maintain resale value -> liquid asset-> way out.
When you bought your last car, did you do so with the expectation that gas prices would remain relatively stable? Are you aware of what happened with certain types of cars (Hummers, for instance), when gas prices skyrocketed? One of my clients drives a Hummer, and wanted to get rid of it. He couldn't give it away (ok, he didn't try to give it away, but he set his price extremely low. Nobody wanted a Hummer).
You're also assuming that it is the developer who would be taking the weeks back. In many cases, it is not. It is the HOA which represents every individual owner, and which didn't make any promises. Yes, the HOA is responsible for setting the budget, and in many cases they do a great job. But the reality is that costs increase. We live in a society where we want to be paid top dollar for our own work, but balk at the thought of paying the increased price for everyone else to enjoy similar income.
The question remains HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE NOT PAYING THE MF FEES-- they say alot until we know the exact number of non paying owners- we do not know forsure how much extra is being charged in the MF for these non paying owners. Also even if all non paying owners would start paying do you think that the MF fees would go down.
Two years ago when everyone was so called paying the MF fees, the fees were still high so all of this talk about non-paying members is non-sense.
Bottom line is we owners have no-one looking out for our best interest, the developers, association and everyone else is Starwood, until us owners have a say in what goes on..... we will be writing on these chat rooms all day long.... Starwood tried to sell me a two bedroom EOY at SVV for $15k. I told him I can buy on Ebay for $2k or less.
I can't speak to the issue at Starwood, but with my resorts, we know exactly how much is being charged to cover people who don't pay - it is a specific line item in the budget. I suspect in the case of your resort, two years ago not everyone WAS in fact paying. In the case of Starwood and some of the other big developers, part of the issue may be fees that were originally set too low, providing no reserve to pay for replacement of worn furnishings, repair of leaking roofs, and other capital "improvements." If the fees were too low to begin with, you have to make up for what wasn't paid for before, as well as setting a reasonable fee going forward.
Late summer 2009 I met with 3 different resort managers about where the 2010 MFs were headed. Each manager had a different growing problem area in collecting the full share of 2009 MF.
One HOA had older owners who simply were not able to travel or whose spouse had died.
One HOA had younger owners who had a wage earner lose a job.
One HOA had too large of a SA causing walkaways and a several year foreclosure process where no MFs had been collected on many intervals.
Only one of the HOAs had assigned an onsite employee to CALL each owner to politely try to get a payment plan made. The manager said mostly the owners wanted to preserve their vacation week, but if not, the resort tried to keep the week from becoming a costly foreclosure.
Another resort manager was proposing a plan to the HOA to package the free and clear fixed weeks as a package time to a vacation club for their ownership. The HOA IMO was paying a lot of legal fees and not collecting MFs for a period of time, only to hand over the weeks ownership to a company "related" to the current management company for a bulk, bundled fee.
The 3rd resort manager was planning another SA.
Owners need to be more active. Learn which resort managers are working for the owners or another entity. Learn if the HOA is truly adapting to the times or just rubber stamping the management company's plan.
Absolutely. While the second option - selling units to a vacation club - might sound like it's in the interest of the vacation club and not the HOA, it might still be a vaiable option, as long as the vacation club will pay its share of the ongoing fees. One option might be to "lease" those weeks to the vacation club, or to sell them at a fair market value (or at "cost" for the HOA which includes and back fees the HOA absorbed once the unit was in default). The HOA's prime responsibility is to get those weeks into the hands of someone who will pay the annual fees.
Alan,
LOL - You are being disingenuous and I think you know it. I'm not sure why you continue to try and spread your FUD (fears, uncertainties, and doubts)... do you know of one resort that takes this path? Again, the costs of going through foreclosure make this path prohibitive for all resorts.
But, if you want to continue go right ahead. 
I'll take the path of being truthful and honest when asked for advice.
Do you really believe in 'What's right is right'?
Alan might not know of such a resort, but I can say that Tropical Breeze did in fact foreclose on some owners. Granted, it is a more likely scenario when puchase money is still owed, but it is a tool available to all resorts. It is not just a matter of scaring people, but of informing them of reality. Even if the resorts take the weeks back, those owners still owe any back fees, and if the resorts accept the units back in lieu of fees, they cancelling debt, and the owners should be paying taxes on the transaction.
