[ 2012 ] Fairmont / Sunchaser / Northwynd official thread with lawsuit info!

[CleoB]

I cannot disagree with that at all - well said!!

All I ever wanted was to leave and was willing to forfeit the timeshare I had purchase a few years earlier $35k.

After that I would not have cared!!

I don't recall there being a cancellation fee initially. It was "pay to stay or pay to leave".

 

[LilMaggie]

OK. In my opinion, here's where MG and legal team screwed up and what should have happened. When the RPF and freedom to choose reason to stay came out, MG should have advised everyone to choose that they would cancel their timeshare and leave the resort, but we would be disputing the CANCELLATION FEE in court. That way, instruction would have been given that everyone does in fact want to CANCEL but doesnt agree that they will have to pay to leave, and most likely we would have settled on a reduced cancellation fee or admin fee. There would have been no grounds for billing ongoing maintenance fees because we all would have rescinded the timeshare. It would have been only a loss on that which you have already paid. MG took the case the other way and fought the validity of the RPF. Big mistake. The problem now is if you pay the bills Northwynd is sending out, you are agreeing to stay, and giving them carte blanche forever. Northwynd, should have just let people walk who didn't want to pay the RPF(or offered a very small admin fee to leave), and then Once they had numbers of who wanted to stay, come up with the proportionate RPF to those who wanted to stay, and then give a round 2 exit. Everyone would have left(because RPF would have been too high), Northwynd would bring in investors to renovate and/or condo the units, and they could have sold those off or started a new timeshare entity. Bottom line, the cancellation fee should have been the court battle, not the RPF. Now it’s a mess for everyone and Northwynd is not smart because no one will pay these astronomical numbers in cash that gives you nothing in return. It’s turned into a total $hit show and we need to keep pressuring government now to not let this happen or get a good lawyer/mediator that can go to back to Northwynd and reiterate that everyone just wants out and maybe, only maybe, they will pay a modest admin/cancellation fee to do so.

 

[mmchili]

"I agree and look what happened to the ones that cancelled now Northwynd are also charging them the Special Assessment."
Is this an accurate statement?

"""CANCELLATION AGREEMENT"""
""H. The VIA does not provide for termination by either Party but Northmont is prepared to permit termination on the terms and conditions set out herein.

1. Subject to payment of all amounts owing to Northmont under this Agreement and the Additional Agreement(s), if any, the VIA shall be terminated and the Timeshare Owner shall be released from all current and future obligations under the VIA as of the Effective Date (as defined below in paragraph 2).

4. If the Timeshare Owner fails to make any payment under this Agreement within the time stipulated for payment, Northmont, in its sole discretion, may terminate this Agreement without notice. If this Agreement is terminated as a result of a default in payment by the Timeshare Owner:

a. the VIA shall continue in full force and effect;

b. any amounts paid in respect of the Cancellation Fee, up to a maximum of 50% of the entire Cancellation Fee, shall be retained by Northmont as liquidated damages and not as a penalty; and

c. any portion of the Cancellation Fee then paid which exceeds 50% of the total Cancellation Fee shall be transferred to Resort Villa Management Ltd. applied against existing or, if insufficient existing obligations exist, future maintenance fee obligations of the Timeshare Owner within ten (10) days of the date of termination, provided for greater certainty that no Timeshare Owner shall be entitled to the refund of any amounts paid under this Agreement.""

 

[LilMaggie]

Hindsight being 20-20, I would have definitely paid to cancel my lease back in 2013, however, it didn't seem fair then and it doesn't seem right now. That being said, I totally agree with TsBlow. It appears that we were ill advised by our legal team. Perhaps hubris motivated the attempt to win the unwinnable case. Five years on, we are faced with a huge bill, which many can not pay and some of us refuse to pay because we feel that we have been royally shafted. (As you can see, I am trying very hard to use decent language) I personally don't want the group to pay millions of dollars to a group who never planned to continue the timeshare business or to improve upon the resort and will now walk away with pockets bulging with our hard earned money. Like most of you, I faithfully paid the maintenance fees as they skyrocketed over the years...until I was advised not to. I am not a clever person. I have no knowledge of the law and so, my mistake was to rely entirely upon MG for what to do moving forward. Now, I am a bit hesitant to seek other counsel...should we be hiring lawyers individually?

 

[MarcieL]

Has anyone emailed or contacted the Minister of Justice in Alberta? I'm hoping we'll get a mistrial. This can't be our Canadian legal system that allows innocent people to be scammed like this.

ministryofjustice@gov.ab.ca

I had a reply from the premier's office saying my letter had been sent onto the premier and justice minister.

 

[MarcieL]

The judge and her incomplete ruling is the key, I was told today she is studying the situation??? With no timeline available to us. My NDP MLA supposedly has no opinion and passed it on to the Justice Minister

Never heard a word from my NDP MLA whose name is Lorne Dack. I may send another email off and ask if this how he treats his constituents,

 

[Ultimate_Betrayal]

Never heard a word from my NDP MLA whose name is Lorne Dack. I may send another email off and ask if this how he treats his constituents,

Call their office directly and follow-up that they received your correspondence - if they said they haven't seen it well gives you the opportunity to have them watch their in-box or fax machine while you have a chat with them.

We have been doing things this way and have talked with a lot of assistance and even the odd official who have said they are hearing from a lot of people.

By personalizing the fight we should all get better information and results - if we just keep blasting emails it starts to look like spam and we all know what happens to that.

Good luck with making a few calls - we have about 8 places to follow-up on calls we made on Friday for emails we sent to see if they understood what we said or would like additional information.

 

[FairSun]

Don't know if this has been posted here before, so sorry if I'm reposting. The lawyer on this MG. Apparently the Supreme Court ruled that Club Intrawest was "not" an owner. https://www.newswire.ca/news-releas...deral-court-of-appeal-decision-635276573.html

The Appeal Court found Intrawest TS holders only had a "right to occupancy" and not an ownership interest. We should be so lucky! Yet in their case the TS members who formed an owners group disagree with that position.

 

[RippedOff]

So thankful we have this group working hard for justice!

We need to use social media to spread the word of this catastrophe! Use Twitter etc.

 

[Scammed!]

I called Judge Young's assistant or someone who answers the phone in the office. I knew she couldn't give me legal advice but asked since we don't know if we will be notified by our lawyer and I made it clear no lawyer wants this mess. What do we all do? I informed her the law society is aware of this. She stated we can bring in our own application. Which there are how many hundreds that don't live here? But if she makes a decision on one maybe that would affect all of us.....She had no information on how long that would take to be in front of The Honourable Judge Young but will be getting back to me this afternoon. We need to focus on this as time is ticking...this is important and we need to get on board....unless we hear of facts that something is in the works for sure!

This is a boat I cannot afford to miss, and neither can any of you! Get on Board!

 

[Bewildered]

People what is going on? Followed up on my email to Stephanie McLean MLA, Minister Of Service Alberta. The lady that answered was very cordial and was surprised 1300 people were affected and said next to none calls received an appreciated me calling. This Ministry is ultimately dealing with this from the government you side of things (will be handling all ministry of justice responses also according to her). Come on people get on the phones, very simple to make a call, told her we have an impending critical deadline.
If you have time to post on this site you got time to make a phone call!

Legislature Office
103 Legislature Building
10800 - 97 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB
Canada T5K 2B6
Phone:
780.422.6880
Fax:
780.422.2496

 

[mmchili]

RE: TSBlow-Post #3098;
I agree that one of the two options should have been chosen. Also, that the fee for the chosen option and the respective agreement together with a letter stating that the payment, agreement, and the letter are being submitted "Without Prejudice" and that the payment be placed in a trust account pending resolution of the legality of the two options, that is to ask the courts to make a ruling on legality of the two options.

 

[LilMaggie]

Just wrote the Minister of Justice an email, reminding her that there are over 1000 individuals being affected by this and that we are still waiting for a decision from Judge Young.
I will get on the phone ASAP!

 

[Scammed!]

Just wrote the Minister of Justice an email, reminding her that there are over 1000 individuals being affected by this and that we are still waiting for a decision from Judge Young. I will get on the phone ASAP!
Regarding the previous post by Scammed!, are we able to bring an application to the judge without a lawyer?!

I'm working on that right now on the phone.

 

[Scammed!]

People what is going on? Followed up on my email to Stephanie McLean MLA, Minister Of Service Alberta. The lady that answered was very cordial and was surprised 1300 people were affected and said next to none calls received an appreciated me calling. This Ministry is ultimately dealing with this from the government you side of things (will be handling all ministry of justice responses also according to her). Come on people get on the phones, very simple to make a call, told her we have an impending critical deadline.
If you have time to post on this site you got time to make a phone call!

Legislature Office
103 Legislature Building
10800 - 97 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB
Canada T5K 2B6
Phone:
780.422.6880
Fax:
780.422.2496

I just called to make sure. They know me personally by my emails, and are very aware of all your letters. And yes my letters were all different not spam mail. Also got a tip.

 

[RippedOff]

I just called Service Alberta and the lady I spoke to said that someone would get back to me in a few days....so in government time not sure that will be soon enough! She said she couldn't comment on what was going on on the Service Alberta end of things so that doesn't help either. Going to call the Minister of Justice again.

 

[RippedOff]

Called the Minister of Justice's office and the lady there said they would be emailing out a statement at the END OF THE MONTH! I'm afraid that's going to be too late.

 

[RippedOff]

I just called to make sure. They know me personally by my emails, and are very aware of all the letters. And yes they were all different letters not spam mail. Also got a tip.

What was the tip?

 

[Scammed!]

I just called Service Alberta and the lady I spoke to said that someone would get back to me in a few days....so in government time not sure that will be soon enough! She said she couldn't comment on what was going on on the Service Alberta end of things so that doesn't help either. Going to call the Minister of Justice again.

Service Aberta can't do anything.

 

[Scammed!]

What was the tip?

Would that be smart right now?

 

[MgolferL]

OK. In my opinion, here's where MG and legal team screwed up and what should have happened. When the RPF and freedom to choose reason to stay came out, MG should have advised everyone to choose that they would cancel their timeshare and leave the resort, but we would be disputing the CANCELLATION FEE in court. That way, instruction would have been given that everyone does in fact want to CANCEL but doesnt agree that they will have to pay to leave, and most likely we would have settled on a reduced cancellation fee or admin fee. There would have been no grounds for billing ongoing maintenance fees because we all would have rescinded the timeshare. It would have been only a loss on that which you have already paid. MG took the case the other way and fought the validity of the RPF. Big mistake. The problem now is if you pay the bills Northwynd is sending out, you are agreeing to stay, and giving them carte blanche forever. Northwynd, should have just let people walk who didn't want to pay the RPF(or offered a very small admin fee to leave), and then Once they had numbers of who wanted to stay, come up with the proportionate RPF to those who wanted to stay, and then give a round 2 exit. Everyone would have left(because RPF would have been too high), Northwynd would bring in investors to renovate and/or condo the units, and they could have sold those off or started a new timeshare entity. Bottom line, the cancellation fee should have been the court battle, not the RPF. Now it’s a mess for everyone and Northwynd is not smart because no one will pay these astronomical numbers in cash that gives you nothing in return. It’s turned into a total $hit show and we need to keep pressuring government now to not let this happen or get a good lawyer/mediator that can go to back to Northwynd and reiterate that everyone just wants out and maybe, only maybe, they will pay a modest admin/cancellation fee to do so.

I totally agree as well. We paid over 10K for a bi-annual used it once and then had to pick stay or go. I was prepared to go and call it a day and a bad decision. Now it's a fight...for what? They want us to go...we want to go...and they still have a saleable property meaning they are still going to cash in after we are all gone. Pride and ego is preventing KW from waking up and putting an end to this which could be fast and amicable...too bad. It's also too bad that someone hasn't totally figured out it isn't over yet and there is still fighting to do....

 

[LilMaggie]

I'm working on that right now on the phone.

Perfect! Thanks Scammed!

 

[Ultimate_Betrayal]

Anyone else tiered of hearing "It's not our problem - call these guys"?

It's time for us to step up our game and get someone who can put a story in print for us!!!

Been searching for a good local reporter and I think I found one:

Rick Bell from the Calgary Sun

rick.bell@sunmedia.ca

He sounds like the right guy from his bio:
"Rick Bell is the Page Five columnist at the Calgary Sun. He delights in tormenting those in authority at the city and provincial levels when they've taken their power for granted and run roughshod over those paying the bills. Born and schooled for much of his early years in Winnipeg, he is a former army brat, university philosophy student, teacher and principal.The past 22 years, he has covered the Alberta legislature, Calgary's city hall, elections at all levels along with special sports assignments including Mike Tyson fights, soccer hooligans at the World Cup and Mark McGwire's swing of the bat. He has won honours from the Royal Canadian Legion, Alberta's civil trial lawyers, the Radio-Television News Directors Association and received the Sun's J. Douglas Creighton Award for editorial excellence."

Let's share our stories and see if some more media attention can help us get our Political and Judicial peoples attention!!!

 

[RippedOff]

Anyone else tiered of hearing "It's not our problem - call these guys"?

It's time for us to step up our game and get someone who can put a story in print for us!!!

Been searching for a good local reporter and I think I found one:

Rick Bell from the Calgary Sun

rbell@postmedia.com

He sounds like the right guy from his bio:
"Rick Bell is the Page Five columnist at the Calgary Sun. He delights in tormenting those in authority at the city and provincial levels when they've taken their power for granted and run roughshod over those paying the bills. Born and schooled for much of his early years in Winnipeg, he is a former army brat, university philosophy student, teacher and principal.The past 22 years, he has covered the Alberta legislature, Calgary's city hall, elections at all levels along with special sports assignments including Mike Tyson fights, soccer hooligans at the World Cup and Mark McGwire's swing of the bat. He has won honours from the Royal Canadian Legion, Alberta's civil trial lawyers, the Radio-Television News Directors Association and received the Sun's J. Douglas Creighton Award for editorial excellence."

Let's share our stories and see if some more media attention can help us get our Political and Judicial peoples attention!!!

 

[Scammed!]

Stating not a valid email.....Ultimate Betrayal