PerryM
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SPECIAL REPORT: Ski Side Village In The Poconos, Pennsylvania, Learns The Hard Way
March 9, 2001
The Timeshare Beat
Owners at the 57-unit Ski Side Village in Pocono Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania, a deeded-weeks property, have learned the hard way the importance of keeping tabs on their TOA/HOA.
Owners at this resort have been sending in their maintenance fees regular as clockwork for years, and part of those maintenance fees were supposed to go toward paying property taxes, as detailed in their contracts. Yet in late 1998 Monroe County and a court-appointed custodian were in the process of trying to collect some $700,000 in owed taxes from the 1,750 shocked timeshare owners, who were naturally concerned that they are being asked to pay property taxes twice-- once to the homeowner's association and now again to the court-appointed custodian.
The director of Monroe County Tax Claim Bureau said her office had made agreements with the Owners Association, controlled by realtor Frank Carr III, to collect $500,000 in back taxes and Carr "defaulted on the agreements." Carr denied the allegation. Ivan J. Krouk, a Philadelphia lawyer who is the current court-appointed custodian, contends that the shortfall is due to the fact that Carr never billed himself for the timeshares he owns, reportedly some 29 percent of the total inventory.
Krouk's appointment by Common Pleas Judge Jerome P. Cheslock early in 2000 arose from a suit brought on behalf of timeshare owner Heddy Ann Vymazel of York, PA. Krouk's report charges
Vymazal said she learned in 1999 that taxes on her property had not been paid since 1995 despite the fact that she had paid her $275 maintenance fee for her one-week share every year, plus a one-time $50 special assessment for real estate taxes, ever since buying her timeshare in 1986.
Because it is the HOA/TOA that is notified by the County of taxes due, not the individual owners, neither she nor other owners ever knew that the taxes were not being paid.
The County tried to auction off all the units at a tax sale in 1998, but was unsuccessful. On September 21, 1999, the County did indeed sell off one entire unit (Unit 30), which was purchased by Charlie and Victoria Keller-- who operate as Greenwood Trust, Inc. It was sold for $4,269.83; the deed was issued on June 23, 2000. Frank Carr allegedly owned 13 weeks in Unit 30.
Result of appeals:
http://www.aopc.org/OpPosting/Supreme/out/872mal2002.pdf
I'm going on reading a follow up post from years ago but I believe the judge used common sense and threw out the case...the owners got back their units and the HOE got the boot.