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Point at Poipu & Diamond Resorts Int'l

Kauai Kid

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Here is a posting I received 12/30/11 that may be of interest to those owning at the Point. Remember, I am not the source of the info but only passing it on.

Let the lights shine brightly. :cheer: Sterling

Diamond Resorts responds in dispute with timeshare owners

Submitted to The Garden Island newspaper in Hawaii

The following information was provided to The Garden Island Newspaper some time ago. The fight is ongoing and COPP’s voice is getting louder.

LIHU‘E — In a wry turn of events, the Concerned Owners of The Point at Poipu (“COPP, LLC”, formerly “CDOPP”), a vacation owners group that was threatened with a lawsuit by the developer/management company of The Point at Poipu in March of last year, is now itself preparing a lawsuit against this corporate giant, Diamond Resorts International, Inc. (“DRI”), one of the largest hospitality companies in the world. There has been an intense struggle between DRI and many upset vacation owners at the resort in Kauai who have owned there long before DRI ever showed up. Many of these owners are alleging that they have been deceived by DRI , that DRI has serious conflicts of interest in Board decisions and does not recuse itself, that there is a shocking lack of disclosure of essential information, that it has been non-compliant with Hawaii Revised Statutes and that the resort is generally mismanaged.

The initial grassroots efforts of this owners group was spearheaded by former President of CDOPP, Rich Batchelder, who retired from the group in October of this year, leaving the group floundering. Unwilling to give up, members of CDOPP recruited a new, energized board to help them. According to Keith Paulsen, the new President, it was a Facebook page designed by one of the vacation owners, Tammy Sona, which helped revitalize the group. This Facebook page now gave members a way to communicate with each other where there had been none before. Sona currently plays a pivotal role as one of the new board members of the owners group that is now called “COPP, LLC.” The address of the Facebook page that she created is: http://www.facebook.com/pointatpoipu.

Meanwhile, the next DRI atrocity was foisted on all of the vacation owners at The Point at Poipu when they were informed in October 2011 of a $65 million assessment to repair damages to the resort from water intrusion. This outrageous price tag would be paid for by the vacation owners and in part by DRI. To illustrate, an owner that holds a vacation interest for two weeks a year is expected to pay, by January 1, 2012, more than $6,300, consisting of maintenance fees and the first-year water intrusion assessment fees. Further, this entire amount would have to be paid by February 1, 2012, in order to avoid: “…the following:

a. A one-time late charge equal to 5% of the delinquent amount.

b. An interest charge of 12% per annum from the due date.

c. General Excise Tax (GET) of 4.16666% on all of the above charges.

d. Owner will suffer suspension of use rights.

e. All future reservations will be cancelled and owner will be required to re-book the reservation and will be subject to first come, first served availability.”



If the account is not paid in full or not operating under a payment plan by February 15, 2012, “…the account will be submitted for collection action resulting in additional collection fees.” If the account is not paid by March 15, 2012, “Your Board of Directors may request any necessary actions to collect outstanding assessments. Actions may include but are not limited to the following:



1. Submit a delinquent account to an attorney.

2. Engage a professional collection agency.

3. Record a claim of assessment lien.

4. Foreclose on the claim of assessment lien.

5. Institute a small claims suit or legal action.



All related costs for the above, including General Excise Tax (GET) of 4.16666%, will be added to the delinquent member’s account.”

Tammy Sona speaks for many vacation owners when she says, “A great number of our owners are retired now, having spent many years working hard so they could enjoy their senior years vacationing in Kauai. This assessment is such a hardship on these owners, not just the ones that are retired, and some will be forced to surrender their deeds or be foreclosed on. This just isn’t right, it’s not the way you treat people.”

Vacation owners were notified of all this in October 2011, giving them THREE MONTHS NOTICE to come up with thousands of dollars for an unexpected assessment. To add fuel to the fire, two informational meetings were held on October 19, 2011, in Irvine, California, and on October 20, 2011, in San Francisco, California, just days after the assessment fees were announced. Most vacation owners, of course, would not be able to attend these meetings on such short notice and at their expense. NO informational meetings about the water intrusion problem have taken place at the resort!

The vacation owners have been led to believe that DRI has performed its due diligence regarding the $65 million assessment. To the contrary, DRI will not release pertinent information such as the consultants’ reports, engineers’ and architects’ reports, insurance policies and other documents that would help to justify this huge expense. COPP, LLC, does not dispute that some of the work is necessary, but it wants the opportunity to bring in an independent third party to assess the situation. “With many of our members having backgrounds in the construction-related industries, we’re not about to accept this without some degree of scrutiny” asserts Paulsen. DRI insists that the insurance company denied the claim for the damage, but no one except DRI has seen the denial letter. DRI has created a website for vacation owners’ perusal regarding the water intrusion problem, but nothing of real substance can be found there.

Former Diamond Resorts International Executive Vice President and General Counsel Elizabeth Brennan was quoted in a March 1, 2010, Garden Island article that stated “…the few members of the concerned owners group are not representative of the ownership of this resort and their satisfaction level.” The disgruntled owners group, renamed COPP, LLC (Concerned Owners at the Point at Poipu) has grown to well over 1,000 determined owners looking for changes to the operations and management of the resort.

Members of COPP, LLC, who have been interested in running for a position on one of the resort’s Boards of Directors have been denied by DRI their request for the resort’s membership list, needed to gain support for their candidacy by contacting other owners. This denial, both at The Point at Poipu and at the Kaanapali Beach Club in Maui, is contrary to the laws of Hawaii and to the resorts’ organizational documents. Section 514A-83.3 of the Hawai‘i Revised Statutes requires the board of directors to provide an ownership list to any owner for the use of soliciting votes.

The management and corporate administration fees at The Point at Poipu that were $721,262 in 2007 have increased to $3,265,745, budgeted for 2012--over a 353% increase during this short timeframe. The DRI executives would like us to believe that the Board of Directors (consisting of a majority of DRI employees or relatives of DRI employees) voted for these increases independent of their association with DRI.

DRI’s Vice President of Association Administration, Linda Riddle, was quoted in an earlier article, “If they aren’t happy, they could vote us out. They have the power to do that.” COPP, LLC, members disagree. “If it was that easy, it would be done immediately,” said Paulsen, “but without the membership list everyone knows that it’s virtually impossible to campaign for office, and DRI wants it that way.”

Paulsen adds “with control of the boards, including the Hawaii Collection Board of Directors, the vacation owners are at the mercy of this corporate giant. It’s really a David versus Goliath situation but this is a determined group of owners that are not going to stop fighting no matter who is running the show. I think they are underestimating the strength of the membership and the power of the internet.” Members of COPP, LLC, have been very active on the internet and others have helped support their efforts.

COPP, LLC, registration grows on a daily basis and it is a very simple registration process. Hawaii Collection members can also register by inputting their account number followed by “HC” to identify that they are a points collection member.

The Hawaii Collection consists of The Point at Poipu in Kauai, The Kaanapali Beach Club in Maui, the Polo Towers Villas in Las Vegas, and the Sedona Summit Resort in Sedona, AZ. Members of the Hawaii Collection are also charged a portion of the assessment based on the amount of points they own, whether or not they have ever used or plan to use the resort in Kauai.

Brennan and Riddle said the proscription elsewhere in 514A against directors voting on an issue in which they have a conflict of interest could apply to developer reps and deeded owners alike, and said they do not believe there are conflicts of interest when the boards vote on budgets that include fees that impact the company’s bottom line. To that Sona replied, “This statement made by DRI is almost comical. Do they really think people are that stupid? They want us to believe that their employees are going to bite the hand that feeds them, seriously?”

DRI’s tactics have demonstrated its intention to completely take over the Point at Poipu. It has encouraged vacation owners to surrender their deeds in exchange for membership and points in its vacation club. It recently offered some vacation owners a reduced Water Intrusion Assessment if they would give up their deeds for points and then buy additional points in the vacation club. What DRI is not disclosing is that owners who surrender their deeds lose all voting rights and no longer have any say about how the resort is run. COPP, LLC, intends to discourage vacation owners at the Point at Poipu from surrendering their deeds. It fully intends to keep working diligently to reclaim its resort from DRI.

For more information on the concerned deeded owners, visit www.poipuowners.org.
 

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IMHO as one of those impacted by Diamond's no longer secret agenda related to the Point of Poipu resort, I received a very threatening email from Diamond’s attorneys as they attempt to squash those of us who would attempt to make their business practices visible. The one point not mentioned anywhere, but very telling on the Diamond’s press releases is that Linda Riddle, the VP of Diamond often quoted, has her mother on the board as a “independent” board member. And it is that board of 5 people including 2 DRI employees and Cleana Dean (Riddle’s mother) who voted not to publish the list of owners to any owner seeking office. This screams conflict of interest and/or collusion and the owners, who have been awakened, need to have their rights given back to them. The challenge is to get owner control of the board away from Diamond before their agenda is completed and without the list of owners to engage when running for the board that becomes nearly impossible. They don’t want anything to stop people from booking into Point of Poipu (could they be using this $69M damage assessment to make improvements along the way??) and they don’t care if people can’t afford this assessment because they will just take ownership defaults back into inventory and sell them again (making double dipping the preferred sales technique). They put themselves in a bottom line win/win situation no matter what happens owners be damned. :mad:
 
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...Diamond's no longer secret agenda related to the Point of Poipu resort... away from Diamond before their agenda is completed...

This just in...

"Secret memo discovered from the offices of DRI shows plans to take over the world!"

Today Point at Poipu, tomorrow the world... Oh please, enough with the big evil Diamond conspiracy nonsense. The P@P may be a nice resort, but why would Diamond ONLY have evil designs on the owners there and NOT on the rest of the owners at Diamond resort properties around the globe?

Or do some people actually believe they do and this is just the beginning? And of what exactly... an attempt to take over the timeshare market? Is this supposed to be their secret business strategy? There may well be quite a bit of buyers remorse in the offices of DRI upon getting a taste of the lemon they bought into. Does anyone think they would have willingly taken over the Point if they had known it was not much more than a house of cards? Oh yeah, it really doesn't have any real structural problems, huh?

The more the "Angry" folks want to make this all about the big bad Diamond wolf, the more ridiculous this all becomes. Along with the rewards of ownership, also comes the risks.
 

MichaelColey

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Has there every been an assessment ANYWHERE that was this large? I'm not an owner, so I don't have a horse in this race, but it certainly doesn't sound right to me. What could possibly cost $65 million to repair? It seems like you could rebuild the entire resort for that much money.
 

dougp26364

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This just in...

"Secret memo discovered from the offices of DRI shows plans to take over the world!"

Today Point at Poipu, tomorrow the world... Oh please, enough with the big evil Diamond conspiracy nonsense. The P@P may be a nice resort, but why would Diamond ONLY have evil designs on the owners there and NOT on the rest of the owners at Diamond resort properties around the globe?

Or do some people actually believe they do and this is just the beginning? And of what exactly... an attempt to take over the timeshare market? Is this supposed to be their secret business strategy? There may well be quite a bit of buyers remorse in the offices of DRI upon getting a taste of the lemon they bought into. Does anyone think they would have willingly taken over the Point if they had known it was not much more than a house of cards? Oh yeah, it really doesn't have any real structural problems, huh?

The more the "Angry" folks want to make this all about the big bad Diamond wolf, the more ridiculous this all becomes. Along with the rewards of ownership, also comes the risks.

Actually, I believe that trust ownership was set up so that the trust, which tends to act at the direction of the management/developer, is in fact set up to maintain control over resorts. Management contracts at resort seem to me to be a lucrative deal. Why lose the management contract if you can keep control of the voting rights indefinately through trust based ownership.

Look at how DVC is set up. Maybe I'm wrong but DVC appears to maintain total control over it's product and resorts. There's little chance that any DVC developer resort will ever leave DVC unless DVC wants to get rid of it. When DVC decided to leave I.I. and go with RCI, DVC members didn't appear to have any say in the matter.

So, Sunterra with it's trust based ownership was, IMHO, setting itself up to be the perpetual management company for all the resorts it had developed. The problem was they couldn't manage the business and went bankrupt. It's my opinion that the trust ownership set up originally by Sunterra is what attracted DRI to purchase Sunterra.

As you can see, shaking off a management company is tough enough let alone shaking off a management company that has enough voting rights via a trust ownership base to control the HOA/BOD.
 
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I'm not an owner, but I have been following the threads, and it appears to me, that they *are* rebuilding the resort for the $65 million.

DRI seems to have an effective business model--for DRI. Take over struggling resorts, increase MF to bring the resorts up to a higher standard, and then finish selling unsold units, plus all the additional, now up-graded units from owners that the higher MFs forced out. DRI gets to profit from selling units in a newly-refurbished resort, but with current owners shouldering the vast majority of the costs (certainly cheaper than developing new, high-end properties to sell.) It's all perfectly legal (and profitable,) and if you're an owner that can afford the higher MF, you get to stay in a nicer resort. If not, well....

All of this has made me very happy to own in a small, owner-controlled HOA.
 

amycurl

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And I agree as well about the Trust apparently designed to keep the management developer-based in perpetuity.
 

T_R_Oglodyte

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Actually, I believe that trut ownership was set up so that the trust, which tends to act at the direction of the management/developer, is in fact set up to maintain control over resorts. Management contracts at resort seem to me to be a lucrative deal. Why lose the management contract if you can keep control of the voting rights indefinately through trust based ownership.

I concur, though I would add that the trust makes sense for DRI as a business model on multiple levels, not just for controlling the resort.

******

The model that they are working from is creating a branded name for timeshare vacation ownership. Anyone who invests in creating a brand is going to insist on being able to control the brand - that's axiomatic. So as long as the resort carries the name, they owner of the brand will want control of the product. Embassy tried franchising the name, but for various reasons that didn't work.

******

Another part of the business model is capturing the evenue that owners would otherwise be giving to an exchange company. So you set up a mini-system where owners can stay in multiple locations, and charge an annual club membership fee that essentially offsets the RCI or II membership fee. So now the developer has captured money that is otherwise going to RCI.

*****

So the trust system lets the developer create a branded mini-system of resorts, control the operation of the resorts that are part of the mini-system, create a product they can push on the sales floor as a premium product, and capture a greater share of the members vacation spending.
 

artringwald

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Actually, I believe that trut ownership was set up so that the trust, which tends to act at the direction of the management/developer, is in fact set up to maintain control over resorts

I've also suspected that the trust was set up to be able to oversell properties. Why would an Hawaiian trust include two properties that aren't even in Hawaii? Now you have twice as many people fighting to reserve the prime weeks. Laws were passed to require that each deed be assigned to a unit, even if the usage was floating, to prevent companies from overselling. The trust is a convenient way to get around the law. When we bought our week in 2004, no one could reserve more than 12 months ahead. Why is the trust allowed to book 13 months in advance? With the trust gaining a higher percentage of the weeks, deeded owners are becoming powerless to do anything about it.
 

T_R_Oglodyte

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I've also suspected that the trust was set up to be able to oversell properties. Why would an Hawaiian trust include two properties that aren't even in Hawaii? Now you have twice as many people fighting to reserve the prime weeks. Laws were passed to require that each deed be assigned to a unit, even if the usage was floating, to prevent companies from overselling. The trust is a convenient way to get around the law. When we bought our week in 2004, no one could reserve more than 12 months ahead. Why is the trust allowed to book 13 months in advance? With the trust gaining a higher percentage of the weeks, deeded owners are becoming powerless to do anything about it.

I don't think the Trust can oversell - the number of points available to be sold in the trust has to equal the number of points associated with the deeds in the trust. That is covered in the outside auditors report.

As to why there are non-Hawaii resorts in the "Hawaii" trust - that's an outgrowth of the situation that Sunterra never added the Hawaii resorts to their US collection, in large measure I understand because they wanted to keep the Hawaii properties as "premium" locations. So after Sunterra bought out the other partners at those two locations they put the two Hawaii properties into a separate trust - the Hawaii trust.

When DRI arrived on the scene, they already had Polo Towers and they wanted to keep the idea of a "premier properties" collection. So they added the two other properties as they felt those were premier properties that fit better with the Hawaill collection than with the other US Collection properties. They continue to market the Hawaii Collection as the "upscale" properties trust.

******

The 13-months deal was something that bothered me for some time until Jamie Shigeta and Patti Ornellas one time walked me through how the process works. I was concerned that if Trust owners were able to reserve at 13 months, wouldn't trust members wind up taking more than their fair share of the prime units at prime time - I could easily see, for example, allof the Christmas and New Years ocean front units being reserved at 13 months by Trust members, so that when the 12-month window opened for deeded owners there would be nothing left for them to reserve at those peak times.

But the way the system was set up, for each given week the available units were split between the Club and deeded owners in relation to the split in ownership between those two groups. Club members were then allowed to reserve only from Club allocation; deeded owners were only able to reserve from the deeded allocation. So while Club owners were able to reserve 13 months in advance, they can only book the portion already allocated to the Club.
 

dougp26364

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While a trust, or even a mini system, can't oversell one particular resort, it can create the illusion that everyone has equal access to any one particular resort or resort area. HGVC does this perfectly when selling their Orlando and Vegas timeshares, but promising those who buy into those resorts that getting into Hawaii is as easy as falling off a turnip truck.

They don't oversell a resort. They oversell the idea that everyone has easy access to particular resorts, particular style units (selling a smaller package but promising you can save/borrow from another years usage) and easy access to the highest demand weeks in the most difficult places to exchange into.

Now, having said that, I'm going to add that DRI's system has given us easier access into resorts they manage than either HGVC or Marriott, so I'm not trying to pick on them. They provide a strong, quality product that for all intents and purposes delivers on their promises. I like the product.

P@P is a unique situation and I don't envy DRI's position. The problem was created by former management. DRI is restricted by the contractual obligations to maintain the contractual obligations set in place by a former developer and they are responsible to maintain the resort for the owners of the resort. Failure on either front can put them in a position where they can be held liable.

They're not in a great position from a popularity standpoint. They are, however, likely on excellent legal standing. I fear a small group of owners with misguided intention will cost every single owner of the resort even more in costs.
 

T_R_Oglodyte

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While a trust, or even a mini system, can't oversell one particular resort, it can create the illusion that everyone has equal access to any one particular resort or resort area. HGVC does this perfectly when selling their Orlando and Vegas timeshares, but promising those who buy into those resorts that getting into Hawaii is as easy as falling off a turnip truck. …

One of the benefits of the various DRI "Collections" (or Trusts) is to minimize precisely that problem. By buying into the trust that has the resorts a particular buyer wants to visit, the buyer gets the home collection preference to reserve in that resort. Whether that was part of the rationale for creating the trusts I can't say, but the sales force certainly pitches that aspect of the trust ownerships.
 
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A trust by its very nature is an ownership and control entity, and it is that by design. It can certainly be argued that the Trust structure has some pros and cons. Some who may is a bit more old school or purist, seem to focus on the cons. It is NOT inherently a bad thing though. As someone who has served on boards, and has also had to deal with individual's expectations and demands, I think it has some merit. Obviously, you want a good Trustee. It is worth repeating that in terms of this disaster at the Point, the trust structure worked as it was supposed to - minimizing costs through ownership in it.

If THAT however is what the legal fight is going to be about, it is a loser. If not, the facebook alliance seems to be little more than a place to foster victim status for people who are upset with the whole thing. Most of the comments there are aimed at "getting rid of Diamond" with the notion that this is all somehow their doing. If you stop and think about it, who would want to own in a system in which you would NEED to have a majority of a crowd like that to make decisions and get anything accomplished. A limited control structure is actually for the benefit of everyone, because the alternative is chaos.

Hey, my SA was paid... LAST YEAR! :rofl: In FULL NO LESS!

We have a trip to the Cape planned for May, and a trip to Gatlinburg and Murrells Inlet in the fall. I have no time for secret agendas and conspiracies.;)
 

T_R_Oglodyte

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A trust by its very nature is an ownership and control entity, and it is that by design. It can certainly be argued that the Trust structure has some pros and cons. Some who may is a bit more old school or purist, seem to focus on the cons. It is NOT inherently a bad thing though. As someone who has served on boards, and has also had to deal with individual's expectations and demands, I think it has some merit. Obviously, you want a good Trustee. [snip]

With the Hawaii trust (and probably the others as well) the trustee has almost no responsibilities other than holding the deeds. The entire operation of the trust is conducted by the Trust manager, under the direction of the Board of Directors of the Trust.

The Trust manager just happens to be .... Diamond Resorts. (I know that must come as a shock to some of you!!!!).

******

When it comes time to cast the trust's votes for the resort Boards of Directors, guess who casts the trust votes??? I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

If you combine the trust ownership bloc with the amount of inventory actually owned by DRI, it's clear that the control of the resort is firmly in the hands of DRI, Efforts spent trying to mobilize non-Trust owners to vote changes on the Board are almost certainly doomed to fail.
 

dougp26364

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One of the benefits of the various DRI "Collections" (or Trusts) is to minimize precisely that problem. By buying into the trust that has the resorts a particular buyer wants to visit, the buyer gets the home collection preference to reserve in that resort. Whether that was part of the rationale for creating the trusts I can't say, but the sales force certainly pitches that aspect of the trust ownerships.

If not for turning over my voting rights and the additional trust management fee, the trust ownership might have been of some interest to us. Because of the voting power the trust enjoys

I'm not certain that keeping our voting rights is really all that important anymore. The trust has enough power to veto owners who hold onto their individual deeded week voting rights. It seems to me that the P@P owners are experiencing that first hand.
 

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If not for turning over my voting rights and the additional trust management fee, the trust ownership might have been of some interest to us. Because of the voting power the trust enjoys

I'm not certain that keeping our voting rights is really all that important anymore. The trust has enough power to veto owners who hold onto their individual deeded week voting rights. It seems to me that the P@P owners are experiencing that first hand.

Doug - as soon as I figured out how the trust fit into the scheme of things I concluded that the right to vote that I had as a deeded owner was now meaningless. At that point it was a decision as to whether we wanted to continue to be in bed with Sunterra (and later Diamond) at Poipu, or cut the ties and move on to something else. Hindsight is wonderful isn't it. I'd love to figure out how to package it and sell it at the time it's needed. :D

We retained the deeded week because I felt that when we wanted to sell, it would be easier to sell a stand-alone deeded float-float week than a stand-alone trust ownership. If we owned something like a garden view unit or partial ocean view we likely would have surrendered the deed.
 

artringwald

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But the way the system was set up, for each given week the available units were split between the Club and deeded owners in relation to the split in ownership between those two groups. Club members were then allowed to reserve only from Club allocation; deeded owners were only able to reserve from the deeded allocation. So while Club owners were able to reserve 13 months in advance, they can only book the portion already allocated to the Club.
Are Club weeks available to deeded owners after there's less than 10 months and vice versa? I'm a deeded owner, but I pay an annual fee to be part of the Club. Does that mean I'm in the pool with the trust owners? If so, if I quit the Club, would I get back in the pool with the deeded owners?
 

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Are Club weeks available to deeded owners after there's less than 10 months and vice versa?
Unless they've totally reworked the inventory control system in recent years, the answer is "No". Deeded owner inventory and club inventory are kept almost entirely separate from each other. I say "almost entirely" because in practice there has been a minor amount of swapping between the two that was needed to keep things straight. For example, I'm pretty sure there were times when the Ohana department at the resort has done week for week swaps with Club inventory to fulfill a deeded owners request when there wasn't a deeded unit available in their ownership class on the dates that they wanted, but it appeared that there was surplus for those dates in the Club inventory.

It's best to think of the Club as simply an owner at the resort who happens to own multiple units at the resort - just like someone who might own five or six weeks and visits the resort several times during the year. The Club gets to reserve inventory that squares up with whatever happens to be with whatever is in their ownership portfolio. At the resort inventory control level, they simply allocate to the Club time at the resort that matches what the Club owns. Once the inventory has been assigned to the Club it is only available to Club members, and how the Club chooses to allocate that time is the Club's business, not the resorts.

Similarly the inventory that remains after assigning Club inventory is available to deeded owners, and the Club can't tap into that or there will be an imbalance in inventory. In the same way deeded owners can't tap into Club inventory without similarly creating an imbalance.
I'm a deeded owner, but I pay an annual fee to be part of the Club. Does that mean I'm in the pool with the trust owners? If so, if I quit the Club, would I get back in the pool with the deeded owners?
I'm inferring from that comment that you paid the fee to join the Club and to use your deeded week in the Club with Club points. (I hope you also got a grandfathering letter.)

In that case you are in the pool with the Club owners. If you read through the paperwork with your deal, you should find a document that is a revocable assignment of the reservation rights for your deed the Club. With that piece of paper in effect, you no longer can use your deed to reserve from the deeded owners pool - instead the reservation right for your deed is now assigned to the Club.

That assignment should be revocable, meaning that at any time you can regain that deeded owner reservation right. As soon as you do so, the points from that week will no longer be part of the Club and you will have to pony up money again to get back into the club.

If you have a trust ownership as well, that trust ownership can remain in the Club even after you remove the deeded week from the Club as long as that Trust ownership was the primary vehicle for getting you into the Club (which is almost always the case when a deeded week owner is part of the Club).
 

timeos2

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If not for turning over my voting rights and the additional trust management fee, the trust ownership might have been of some interest to us. Because of the voting power the trust enjoys

I'm not certain that keeping our voting rights is really all that important anymore. The trust has enough power to veto owners who hold onto their individual deeded week voting rights. It seems to me that the P@P owners are experiencing that first hand.

With an Association that is properly managed & operated to the original intent of the documents and not to some perverted interpretation by a Developer looking to hang around far too long then keeping control of your voting rights is critical. An agreement that the trust/developer will vote their proxies with the majority of independent votes keeps the Board truly independent & able to do whats best for the resort not the corporate bottom line. If joining any Club or trust requires giving up that right that then joining is a big mistake IMO.
 
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artringwald

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DRI: The Point at Poipu, 3 deeded weeks, 1 of which is in The Club.
I'm inferring from that comment that you paid the fee to join the Club and to use your deeded week in the Club with Club points.

Thanks for the clarification. When we bought in 2004, Sunterra paid the fee to join the club. I just took the time to read the 40 some pages of the club documents :zzz:, and now understand what you were saying. I assume that I'm in the same club as the trust, but I can only book 12 months out, and trust members can book 13 months out. I am allowed to cancel at any time.

Some interesting clauses in the club rules:
- Occupants are not allowed to use the accommodations for any "immoral purpose whatsoever".
- The club management can add, delete, or change the rules at any time.
 

T_R_Oglodyte

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Thanks for the clarification. When we bought in 2004, Sunterra paid the fee to join the club.
Ok - so Sunterra sold you a deeded ownership, and membership in the Club was packaged with the sale.
I just took the time to read the 40 some pages of the club documents :zzz:, and now understand what you were saying. I assume that I'm in the same club as the trust, but I can only book 12 months out, and trust members can book 13 months out. I am allowed to cancel at any time.
There is only one club - there's not a different club for each trust.

The club as a whole obtains inventory in accordance with the reservation rights that have been assigned to the club by members as a condition of joining the Club. The club then gives its members the Home Resort/Home Collection advantage to its members in accordance with that members ownership package.

As a deeded owner you have Home Resort Advantage, which is 12 months in advance of check in.
 

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This just in...

"Secret memo discovered from the offices of DRI shows plans to take over the world!"

Today Point at Poipu, tomorrow the world... Oh please, enough with the big evil Diamond conspiracy nonsense. The P@P may be a nice resort, but why would Diamond ONLY have evil designs on the owners there and NOT on the rest of the owners at Diamond resort properties around the globe?

Or do some people actually believe they do and this is just the beginning? And of what exactly... an attempt to take over the timeshare market? Is this supposed to be their secret business strategy? There may well be quite a bit of buyers remorse in the offices of DRI upon getting a taste of the lemon they bought into. Does anyone think they would have willingly taken over the Point if they had known it was not much more than a house of cards? Oh yeah, it really doesn't have any real structural problems, huh?

The more the "Angry" folks want to make this all about the big bad Diamond wolf, the more ridiculous this all becomes. Along with the rewards of ownership, also comes the risks.

Might want to do your homework for going off on the people with the legitimate complaints. Check out Diamond Resort Issues in Britain.
 
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Very Lucky you!

A trust by its very nature is an ownership and control entity, and it is that by design. It can certainly be argued that the Trust structure has some pros and cons. Some who may is a bit more old school or purist, seem to focus on the cons. It is NOT inherently a bad thing though. As someone who has served on boards, and has also had to deal with individual's expectations and demands, I think it has some merit. Obviously, you want a good Trustee. It is worth repeating that in terms of this disaster at the Point, the trust structure worked as it was supposed to - minimizing costs through ownership in it.

If THAT however is what the legal fight is going to be about, it is a loser. If not, the facebook alliance seems to be little more than a place to foster victim status for people who are upset with the whole thing. Most of the comments there are aimed at "getting rid of Diamond" with the notion that this is all somehow their doing. If you stop and think about it, who would want to own in a system in which you would NEED to have a majority of a crowd like that to make decisions and get anything accomplished. A limited control structure is actually for the benefit of everyone, because the alternative is chaos.

Hey, my SA was paid... LAST YEAR! :rofl: In FULL NO LESS!

We have a trip to the Cape planned for May, and a trip to Gatlinburg and Murrells Inlet in the fall. I have no time for secret agendas and conspiracies.;)

How fortunate to be able to pay your assessment in full LAST YEAR! Woe to the rest of us. My question is, "how did you get into Murrells Inlet?". I tried for four years, twelve months in advance, and never could get a reservation.
 

Kauai Kid

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IMHO as one of those impacted by Diamond's no longer secret agenda related to the Point of Poipu resort, I received a very threatening email from Diamond’s attorneys as they attempt to squash those of us who would attempt to make their business practices visible. The one point not mentioned anywhere, but very telling on the Diamond’s press releases is that Linda Riddle, the VP of Diamond often quoted, has her mother on the board as a “independent” board member. And it is that board of 5 people including 2 DRI employees and Cleana Dean (Riddle’s mother) who voted not to publish the list of owners to any owner seeking office. This screams conflict of interest and/or collusion and the owners, who have been awakened, need to have their rights given back to them. The challenge is to get owner control of the board away from Diamond before their agenda is completed and without the list of owners to engage when running for the board that becomes nearly impossible. They don’t want anything to stop people from booking into Point of Poipu (could they be using this $69M damage assessment to make improvements along the way??) and they don’t care if people can’t afford this assessment because they will just take ownership defaults back into inventory and sell them again (making double dipping the preferred sales technique). They put themselves in a bottom line win/win situation no matter what happens owners be damned. :mad:

If possible, how about posting some of that threatening letter?

Mahalo, Sterling
 

T_R_Oglodyte

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The challenge is to get owner control of the board away from Diamond before their agenda is completed and without the list of owners to engage when running for the board that becomes nearly impossible.
If you're interested, I can post a listing of the owners of ~45% of the deeds at Point at Poipu.
 
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