# Carriage Hills Maintenance fees



## Harmina (Oct 16, 2019)

Received our bill today. It looks like those of us in good standing are now paying for all those owners that are delinquent. The fees are now $1488.19 a year.
Sure wish we were going to be here to attend the meeting next week.


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## moonstone (Oct 16, 2019)

Wow! That does seem like what is happening, just like what happened at The Lodges at Horseshoe many years ago.  I belong to a Diamond Facebook group and one of the organizers who is on the warpath with all developers appears to be flying up to attend the meeting next week. She says hundreds of Carriage Hills owners have reached out to her with tales of hardship trying to pay the steep maintenance fees and that they cant find anyway out of their contract. 


~Diane


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## Harmina (Oct 16, 2019)

Diane - that's exactly what I worry about is the fiasco the owners had at the Lodges is what we will be going through. When they sent out our proxy for the vote for next week's meeting, there was newsletter attached and a place to vote if you were in favour of selling the resort. Sure hope the owners read the newsletter and sent in their proxy. Last year there was a vote on whether to have Carriage Hills become a pet friendly resort and the majority voted against it. So at least they do pay attention to what the owners want.  We were sent out a questionnaire a few weeks ago from the resort as to when we bought...did we buy from the developer or did we buy resale and are we wanting out of our contract.  Hopefully a developer will buy us out. The golf course is no longer there and all those homes that backed onto the golf course are now looking at weeds and long grass.  
We only bought one week and it is a fixed week 26....we did not agree to carry the expense for those who walked away. It just isn't right.
We bought from Shell and now Wyndham runs the show.


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## Maple_Leaf (Oct 17, 2019)

moonstone said:


> She says hundreds of Carriage Hills owners have reached out to her with tales of hardship trying to pay the steep maintenance fees and that they cant find anyway out of their contract.


The steep maintenance fees have rendered the weeks worthless in the resale market. I wish the owners good luck and am interested in what Wyndham has to say about this.


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## Ironwood (Oct 21, 2019)

Are Hills still holding sales events to sell weeks they have taken back through default or otherwise?   I certainly hope not!   What is the story with Ridge?


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## Ironwood (Nov 13, 2019)

CBC news had a five minute segment on seniors struggling with the burden of maintenance fees.  The elderly widow profiled complained she had paid $4,500 to a TS exit law firm and was still not out, and it sounded like she was 3 years in arrears on her annual MF's.  Without naming the resort, the description and location sure sounded like Carriage Hills!


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## moonstone (Nov 13, 2019)

Ironwood said:


> CBC news had a five minute segment on seniors struggling with the burden of maintenance fees.  The elderly widow profiled complained she had paid $4,500 to a TS exit law firm and was still not out, and it sounded like she was 3 years in arrears on her annual MF's.  Without naming the resort, the description and location sure sounded like Carriage Hills!



I didn't see anything on CBC but I did see the story on CTV (Barrie & Toronto) that consumer reporter Pat Foran did last evening.
I not only watched it (https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/i-would-...remains-stuck-in-timeshare-contract-1.4680922 ) but Sent Pat Foran an email afterwards. Yes I am pretty sure the woman owns at Carriage Hills as those words are printed (upside down) on the back of one of the papers the woman is holding when seated at the table.  I told Pat that first of all, nobody should be paying upfront fees to anybody/company to take their timeshare off their hands and also that if the woman from the story has the internet or family who does that can help her she can go to TUG for help and also Irene Parker on the Diamond Owners Advocacy facebook group (she has branched out from just Diamond). I also told him about the other possible ways (giving it away on TUG, Redweek…) the woman could try to get out of her ownership herself at no cost. I also told him about Diamond and other companies trying to force heirs of timeshare owners to accept the timeshare and be responsible for paying the maintenance fees forever and how to get around that. 

 Pat sent me this reply;
"These situations can be very unfortunate. We understand there is a huge meeting at Carriage Hills where many people are struggling with this issue.
We plan to attend.
Please watch for our story next week."

So I will be setting my PVR and be anxiously waiting to see what he says. I have neighbours who are owners at Carriage Hills and went to the meeting in Barrie last month only to be told there were too many people for the size of the hall and it was being rescheduled to Nov.19th at Casino Rama, but they leave for Florida on Saturday so cant attend. I would love to be a fly on the wall at that meeting!


~Diane


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## CanuckTravlr (Nov 14, 2019)

If you really want to attend the meeting, Diane, perhaps your neighbours could appoint you as a proxy to vote their interest at the meeting?  Assuming you have the time to attend...just a thought.


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## AlexBellig (Aug 25, 2020)

The maintenance fee has increased from $500 to $1500 in 3 years due to the delinquiant accounts. Is that even legal? was it in the contract that we signed that they can increase the fees in such enormous amounts?! If it's a condo building and they increase it like that, there will be a revolution and legal repurcussions. But with timeshare we cannot do anything it seems.
I am researching options to start a class action suite. Who is willing to join in?

I delayed payment of my account and now they are charging me another $500 more for being late. Which I will not pay a cent more than $1488.19


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## AlexBellig (Aug 25, 2020)

Anyone has information about the Opt-Out process that they had started with BDO organization?  I don't think it will have any reasonble outcome, they are just doing that to urge owners to pay their annual maint. fees so they will not loose in that opt out. Which is a scam in my opinion. That way they can drag it for years.


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## moonstone (Aug 25, 2020)

AlexBellig said:


> Anyone has information about the Opt-Out process that they had started with BDO organization?  I don't think it will have any reasonble outcome, they are just doing that to urge owners to pay their annual maint. fees so they will not loose in that opt out. Which is a scam in my opinion. That way they can drag it for years.



I don't own there, but know people (neighbours) who do.  If you are on Facebook, there are a few groups for owners.  This one might be a good one to join;    Carriage Hills/Carriage Ridge Restructuring - Litigation Updates.   There is also this group; https://www.facebook.com/groups/CHCROwners/  as well as this website;  http://www.chcrowners.org/


~Diane


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## cd5 (Aug 31, 2020)

AlexBellig said:


> Anyone has information about the Opt-Out process that they had started with BDO organization?  I don't think it will have any reasonble outcome, they are just doing that to urge owners to pay their annual maint. fees so they will not loose in that opt out. Which is a scam in my opinion. That way they can drag it for years.


The resorts are going through a court ordered process with BDO Canada acting as administrator. A ballot was sent to owners on July 17th to allow them to vote to exit or stay. The outcome is that those who answered the email with their ballot can exit with a one-time "exit" fee which is about 1.5 times the annual maintenance fee (and no MF to pay in November). The date of exit for this first group is expected to be Dec 31, 2020 at which time the exit fee will be assessed. A second vote will be made after a re-structuring proposal is made by BDO allowing any who don't like the proposal to exit - this group will pay this year's MF + the exit fee and be able to use the resorts until Dec 2021. Too late to vote for first "exit" now, deadline is midnight tonight.
The resorts have a delinquency rate of about 25% as of 2019 and it was expected to climber higher this year, perhaps resulting in bankruptcy proceedings therefore the boards decided to act pre-emptively and have an Administrator appointed by the Ontario court that regulates bankruptcies and re-structuring.


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## cd5 (Aug 31, 2020)

AlexBellig said:


> The maintenance fee has increased from $500 to $1500 in 3 years due to the delinquiant accounts. Is that even legal? was it in the contract that we signed that they can increase the fees in such enormous amounts?! If it's a condo building and they increase it like that, there will be a revolution and legal repurcussions. But with timeshare we cannot do anything it seems.
> I am researching options to start a class action suite. Who is willing to join in?
> 
> I delayed payment of my account and now they are charging me another $500 more for being late. Which I will not pay a cent more than $1488.19


The fees did not go from $500 to $1500 in 3 years. They went from $500 to $1488 in 10 years. A little over $300 of that amount is to cover part of the missing "delinquent" amounts towards the MF. No one will join a class action as action is being taken to allow owners who want to exit to do so. If the "exit" vote dominates, the resorts may be closed and liquidated. Delinquent owners have no rights, no possible pay-out unless/until they pay up their account


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## AlexBellig (Sep 1, 2020)

Thank you for the replies.
As I understand, if they declare bankruptcy then all owners will be 'exited' automatically and the delinquent owners don't need to pay previous fees. 
Perhaps this will carry on for years and people who pay their 'inflated' annual fees will not get anything in return.
Also in this pandemic, they are not giving owners any discounts on MFs even though there are no maintenance being done on the resorts (maybe minimal) and we cannot even use the facilites that we are paying the MF...isn't this a scam? Since their expenses have gone down significantly (payrol and otherwise), they should share the savings with the owners, hence the MF should be decreased.


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## moonstone (Sep 29, 2020)

From the Diamond Resort Advocacy group page on Facebook. 

"*A survey was conducted to determine the outcome of Wyndham’s Carriage Hills/Carriage Ridge properties in Ontario, Canada, authorized by the courts. The survey concluded on August 31, 2020.
As a consequence of the survey results, the Administrator has recommended that both of the resorts be shut down effective January 6, 2021 and sold due to a lack of ongoing financial viability.
As previously set out by the Administrator, the proposed exit fee will not be invoiced and there will be no invoices for 2021 maintenance fees.

Voting results:
Carriage Hills Vacation Owners Association
Exit: 62.8% (including delinquents who were deemed to exit)
Stay: 37.2% (only 9.6% of which actually voted to stay, the remaining 27.6% did not vote)

Carriage Ridge Owners Association
Exit: 55.0% (including delinquents who were deemed to exit)
Stay: 45.0% (only 12.5% of which actually voted to stay, the remaining 32.5% did not vote)

There will be holding costs incurred during a sales process and these costs may need to be funded by Members.

The boards of the Associations have voted to accept and implement the Administrator’s recommendations, subject to Court approval.

As a result, the Associations will each be bringing a motion to the Court on October 15, 2020 to request the Court’s approval to implement these decisions.* *"*


~Diane


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## pedro47 (Sep 29, 2020)

moonstone said:


> From the Diamond Resort Advocacy group page on Facebook.
> 
> "*A survey was conducted to determine the outcome of Wyndham’s Carriage Hills/Carriage Ridge properties in Ontario, Canada, authorized by the courts. The survey concluded on August 31, 2020.
> As a consequence of the survey results, the Administrator has recommended that both of the resorts be shut down effective January 6, 2021 and sold due to a lack of ongoing financial viability.
> ...


Sound liked the end. IMHO.


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## AlexBellig (Sep 30, 2020)

moonstone said:


> *There will be holding costs incurred during a sales process and these costs may need to be funded by Members.*
> 
> ~Diane



Holding costs funded by members...which members, paying or delinquent?
That's strange because will the members also share the sale income of the property?


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## falcon (Oct 12, 2020)

Another perspective from one who has been an involved owner for years. Our boards presented this fair exit/restructure option managed by BDO Canada. It was to include vote on who wanted to stay and who wanted to exit. After they had that number, if the stay's were high enough, there would be a potential restructure as the resorts were in 4 separate parcels. This did not happen as the numbers were just not there. Wyndham owns 10% of units and they voted to exit as well. Shitty of them not to tell us this was their intention before we spent all this money!!! Regardless, the resorts will be closed on Jan 6 (after the Christmas holidays). Unfortunately a group of owners got an independent lawyer and added to our fees because our maintenance fees had to pay both the board lawyer and BDO's lawyer to defend their position (making the first survey non-binding and adding obsolescence to the ballot, among other things), which was all shot down by our judge. They also used a smear campaign to discredit BDO, our boards, the process and even our Judge. Their intervention caused BDO administration to spend far more time (paid by us all) responding to them than they should have spent because of the vast amounts of raging and abusive emails BDO had to field. So unfortunately we will likely not see any money from the sales. We are having another court case on Thursday to approve the sales process.  I doubt we will have to pay any holding fees. I think BDO sees this as a silly option. Any holding costs will likely come out of the proceeds. The area is booming and the resorts are in good shape for the most part. Although I don't expect, especially with Covid, that we'll get top dollar. It is a very interesting case and will hopefully show the industry how it should be done. We went through years of hell before finding this solution. Our timeshare agreement and contracts would not allow another way to exit, that anyone could find.


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## Maple_Leaf (Oct 13, 2020)

falcon said:


> Wyndham owns 10% of units and they voted to exit as well.


Wyndham's action speaks louder than words.  They apparently saw no future for timesharing at Horseshoe Valley, at least not they way Carriage Hills and Ridge were structured.


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## Ironwood (Oct 14, 2020)

And if owners are unlikely to see anything from the eventual sale of the resort, those who have kept their maintenance payments current, have not gained anything!


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## CanuckTravlr (Oct 14, 2020)

Ironwood said:


> And if owners are unlikely to see anything from the eventual sale of the resort, those who have kept their maintenance payments current, have not gained anything!



That is unfortunate, but always a risk when you put money into anything.  I assume they at least had the use of the resort (certainly prior to the Covid-19 lockdown), since their maintenance fees were current.  That is something, IMO.

I certainly hope no one purchases a timeshare thinking of it as an investment.  Even with HGVC, where I might expect some residual value, it never factored into my financial calculations.  To me it was always a form of discounted, pre-paid vacation with larger rooms and additional amenities, compared to hotel rooms or even most resorts.  The kitchens that are typical in most timeshares also allow for self-catering options, which provide further vacation savings.

I was never an owner there, but I am sorry to see it shut down.  We stayed a couple of times at Carriage Hills on RCI exchanges and liked both the units and the clubhouse arrangement...particularly the indoor/outdoor pool.  It was one of the few nice timeshares within an easy drive of Toronto.  We will miss it!


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## Sandy VDH (Oct 14, 2020)

It is just a location / Season issue.  

Too hard to operate a yearly resort when there is NOT year round demand.  It has ALL summer (Victoria Day in May until Canadian Thanksgiving in October).  And another 6-8 week window in the winter season depending on snowfall, making snow and general temperatures.   6-7 months of high demand, and very low demand the remaining time.  It is difficult to find the owners to fund such a limited use year.


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## cbyrne1174 (Oct 15, 2020)

I was born in Ontario and as a child, we mainly visited the US, Toronto, or Montreal. What demand does a rural resort in Ontario have? I was pretty young, but I don't remember my parents caring to vacation in Ontario unless it was to see family or to visit Toronto or Niagra Falls. It does have the benefit of being drivable from Toronto, but in terms of attracting non locals, it doesn't have much. Personally, if I want to revisit my Canadian routes, I'd go to Whistler if I wanted a remote location.


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## Harmina (Oct 16, 2020)

CanuckTravlr said:


> That is unfortunate, but always a risk when you put money into anything.  I assume they at least had the use of the resort (certainly prior to the Covid-19 lockdown), since their maintenance fees were current.  That is something, IMO.
> 
> I certainly hope no one purchases a timeshare thinking of it as an investment.  Even with HGVC, where I might expect some residual value, it never factored into my financial calculations.  To me it was always a form of discounted, pre-paid vacation with larger rooms and additional amenities, compared to hotel rooms or even most resorts.  The kitchens that are typical in most timeshares also allow for self-catering options, which provide further vacation savings.
> 
> I was never an owner there, but I am sorry to see it shut down.  We stayed a couple of times at Carriage Hills on RCI exchanges and liked both the units and the clubhouse arrangement...particularly the indoor/outdoor pool.  It was one of the few nice timeshares within an easy drive of Toronto.  We will miss it!


I agree with the above poster about a timeshare not as an investment, but as a guaranteed vacation experience, and all the other beautiful exchanges that we had all over the world without having to worry about the cost of those accommodations in exotic locations.


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## karibkeith (Oct 17, 2020)

We lived in the same area as these two resorts and could see that attendance was lower in the shoulder months but busy in the summer and winter.  Both resorts were attractive because of the proximity to Horseshoe Resort with its ski hills in the winter, and golf course, adventure park and artificial lake with slide in the summer. There is a ATV and snowmobile rental next to Carriage Ridge with extensive nearby trails. Horseshoe Resort was primarily a ski resort within easy reach of Toronto's residents. It too suffered when the ski season was over and added summer attractions to the benefit of the Carriage resorts as well. They had two golf courses and apparently they were not making enough profit leading to the sale of the best of the two as it was favourably zoned for residential development. This course was adjacent to Carriage Hills and around the corner from Carriage Ridge and its closure probably hurt the Carriage resorts although there are several other courses close by.
The two resorts were affiliates within the Shell Vacation Club which was purchased by Wyndham. After that purchase, there was extensive renovations to the exteriors of one of the resorts if not both.
The resorts are within easy drive to the city of Barrie on the shores of Lake Simcoe and to several towns on Georgian Bay (the northeastern arm of Lake Huron).  From the resorts north to Penetanguishene is the historic route established during the War of 1812 leading to Discovery Harbor now exhibiting British ships and fort from that war. Also in the area is the Martyrs Shrine (Canadian martyrs). the Wye Marsh and a replica Huron (Wyndat) village called Sainte-Marie among the Hurons. In the fall there are many routes to witness the colourful changing of the leaves.  There is a walking trail between the two resorts and many other routes to walk.  So there are things to do in the area.
The nearby town has a fully stocked grocery store selling liquor and beer, several restaurants, a gas station, a pharmacy, a chocolatier,  and a souvenir type place.  All these businesses will be hurt with the loss of the timeshares if not replaced by resorts.
Why support from some members occurred is anyone's guess.  The root of the problems is not successfully chasing after delinquents.
Since remaining members had to pay more to cover delinquencies, it started the death spiral of further members becoming delinquent. The rising fees probably was the main cause of the vote in favour of closing down the resorts. However, many people voted to stay and keep the resorts going and these people are the unfortunate ones. I have friend who has owned at both resorts for many years and is very disappointed in the upcoming loss of a favourite vacation place.
It will be interesting to see if the resorts are sold. Who will buy them and operate them as resorts when the timeshares could not maintain visitors. If there is no buyer then ongoing costs will lead to bankruptcy. Perhaps a low acquisition cost will make them somewhat attractive. The resorts were built for time-sharing with kitchens in the main units and kitchenettes in the lock-off second bedrooms. The internet is full of rentals of the lock-offs but not so many for the main units except in shoulder months
Is this the fate of timeshares in other areas?
If there is a buyer, it will be interesting to see the cost of a rental versus the current timeshare maintenance fee.


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