Owners Advisory Committee
According to NEVMSLLC [Post 756702] there was supposed to be an advisory board "that will be made up of individual owners" which will "review all information before it is presented to the trustees and will have direct input for recommendations to the trustees" and should have been appointed in August. Has this promise been kept? What can you Sandcastle owners tell us Southcape Owners about the Sandcastle "advisory board"?
The Sandcastle OAC met on September 26th at the Sandcastle. From what I understand there were 6 chosen members and 3 physically attended the meeting and 1 attended via computer (like a net meeting, I think), and 2 were 'no shows'. We have had a couple of reports .. not too much for 2010 was reviewed as far as I could read ... it was more questions from the owners and answers from Cliff and Tom Franks of Outfield Marketing (both are on the Board of Trustees).
Following is a report that was sent to our owners e-list:
Board of Trustees Members Present…Cliff Hagberg, Tom Franks(also Outfield Marketing Partner)
Owners present…Marie Caniglia-Robiolio, Chuck Hazard, Ernie Pergano, Paul Lehrman present via webcam/video conference on laptop…two other owners dropped out.
My questions are italicized. Both Cliff and Tom gave answers to the questions. I did not indiacte who answered what in many cases.
Why did you fail to give the owner’s list to owners who asked to see it?
Cliff’s response was that there are two conflicting laws…one stating we the owners have a right to see the list and the other is the Privacy Act stating it is illegal to give out private information.
Cliff’s attorneys said he would be/ could be sued either way. If he doesn’t give it up he could be sued by the owners for not complying with the law requiring him to do so or he could be sued by someone who got hurt because of the information he gave out. There is a liability here because privacy is compromised. He was advised by his lawyer not to give it out because there is a greater liability in this situation. Someone could be stalked, hurt in some way, bothered by someone who got a hold of that list. He stated it is a responsibility as a trustee to reduce liability and that meant not giving out the owners’ private information. He did state the privacy law number but I was unable to write the number down. Anyone can look it up.
Did you know there was a deficit when you purchased the inventory? They knew there was a deficit but had no idea it was so huge.
You didn’t get a reduced price from the old Trustees on the inventory you bought because of the deficit or the condition of the resort did you? They laughed…NOOO
Why the 26% increase in the 2009 maintenance fees? To cover all the expenses and balance the budget except for the $350,000 shortfall which would be covered by the assessment.
The budget is now balanced.
Do you anticipate the maintenance fees will go up annually? Yes, because all things get more expensive each year, but will not go up anywhere near 26%
Will all financial records be available for owners to view? Yes, on an individual basis, just call the office and let them know in advance when you are coming.
Will you be going after owners who do not pay their Maintenace fees and assessments? Yes, they will go after all the money first, then try for half. If they are unable to get anything, and since it is too expensive to forclose, they will go after it by something called “Entry and Possession” They will go in the room the week the owner is supposed to be there and follow a certain procedure which I will have to get more info on. I didn’t write it all down and I can’t remember the procedure but ultimately the title will revert back to the association. The week can then be sold and it’s the association’s money.
Cliff, did you pay your maintenance fees on your personal week? No, I was unaware that I didn’t pay it until Debbie told me I didn’t pay them this year.
How could you let that happen? It just slipped my mind.
Do you plan on paying them? And any late fee? yes
And are you going to pay the assessment? yes
Cliff did you convert your week to points? No
Do you plan on it? No, I have RCI points.
Will you be taking weeks back? If all maintenance fees are paid and there are extenuating circumstances they will consider it. The title will revert back to the association. They generally will not take weeks back.
If the developer has a week for rent and an owner has a week they want the resort to rent…who gets priority? The developer’s week will get priority because all the money from developer’s weeks that are rented goes to the association as per developer agreement.
The 25% fee that the resort charges to rent an owner’s week also goes to the association as per developer agreement.
I asked about a trust issue we could possibly have since all this is going on? How will we, the owners know that all income is being reported, especially owners’ weeks that are left to be rented out by the resort? They could potentially be occupied by outfield sales people or free night promotional give aways. How will the owners ever know.? It is a trust issue and there has to be some amount of trust. Plus there are maid reports and registry documents that can be seen, and there is always a chance an owner will call their room on their week to be rented and if someone answers the phone after they were told its not been rented…well there is going to trouble and they/ NEVS doesn’t need that or want that trouble.
Well you do know there are big trust issues right now, so trust is hard at this point. You understand? Yes but we have nothing to hide.
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Why doesn’t the developer pay fees and assessments on his unsold inventory? The prior developers didn’t .
So what does that have to do with you as the developer now… The bank would not finance the deal unless the declarent was not responsible for the maintenance fees.
********This is one of the issues that I need to get clarification on. I am not satisfied with their answer at this time and Cliff had issues about discussing it.
Questions about Festiva
Does/Will Festiva pay maintenance fees and assessment? Yes
Will Festiva have voting rights to the units they hold deeds to? Yes
Can/will Festiva have control if they get 51% of the resort? Yes, but it is virtually impossible for Festiva to get 51% based upon the fact that there are 4000 owners. That would mean more than half would have to turn over their weeks. And they also can not take over no matter what percentage they own as long a NEVS is the developer, for contractual reasons.
Cliff and Tom both said there won’t be any issues if the owners make sure they all vote.
I mentioned about the lack of trust we have at this point and not having transparency…
I said there needs to be a way to show that you NEVS/Outfield have nothing to hide. Wouldn’t it be a smart thing to do to let one of the owners be on the Board of Trustees? Cliff and Tom made a call to another Trustee and decided it would be a good idea to have the owners elects one owner to be on the Board of Trustees.
Cliff and Tom will soon be sending out notices stating the duties and responsibilities of the Trustee and will ask for candidates to submit resumes for owners to review and then an election will be held. Details will follow.
Questions about Outfield Marketing
I mentioned to Tom Franks who is not only a Board of Trustee member, but he is one of the 3 partners in Outfield, that there were so many issues with Outfield and that the owners had been told such as outright lies. I listed several which were told to me directly. He said he was unaware of the complaints as he had not heard from any owners. He did say that some of the original sales people that went to people’s homes were fired for various reasons. Please call them with any Outfield issues.
Is Outfield getting paid by Festiva to sell points? Tom was evasive but I believe after I asked several times he finally said yes.
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I asked how much Outfield got out of the $3000 that Festiva charges? NEVS gets about 50%
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So what does Sandcastle get out of it? We get maintenance fee paying owners.
********I have issues with this answer. Not too happy about it.
Where do the Outfield salespeople stay when here at the resort? In developer units, however, if they stay in an owners rooms they will pay for it.
Does Outfield pay for expenses? Yes, they even have a separate phone bill that they pay but they also have an agreement with the developer.
Cliff is any member of your family involved in the renovations? No
But doesn’t your brother work here as a maintenance man? Yes, but not on renovations
I did mention the fact that Cliff himself said his brother was a master carpenter and that Cliff said his brother was going to do some work on cabinets and furniture to save the resort some money. Cliff agreed with that statement.
I asked about the annex and I asked if the rooms there were going to be rented and how much we could expect…Cliff said that he expects $50,000 -$70,000 per year. About $65 per night. The rents go to the association.
I asked if the rooms were going to be used as free promo nights for outfield marketing ? yes they could be and if they were Outfield would pay for the rooms out of their pockets.
Cliff will be choosing two additional people to be on the advisory board. It will meet about 4 times a year. More details to follow.
I had a question about the assessment fees…if you agreed to pay installments and you are late a few days, they will not charge a late fee and void the installment deal.
Cliff did say that if anyone put anything on their check such as “paying under protest” the checks will be returned as funds not available or something to that effect. And he will then charge you a late fee. There is no escrow fund and the demand letters according to Cliff do not mean a thing.
Cliff and Tom did say that some financial issues and other issues are developer issues and have nothing to do with the association.
I hope I did not leave anything out. If I did I will send the additional notes.
