2010 Maintenance Fee Thread

[Synergist]

Help!! Mtc Fee Increase!

Ok I'm very confused and I feel completely taken advantage of, I got my Yearly MTC bill today for Vistina Villages in Orlando, My bill for a 2 BEDROOM RED WEEK was around 1250.00

A 29% increase over last year .. Last year was around 950.00

Can they legally increase my fee's this much? I know things are bad but to increase my fee's this much because other people are not paying the bill isn't going to solve anything. Whats going to happen now is more people are not going to pay their bill.

My Question is , If I don't pay this, Do I just forfeit this year? Or will I have to back pay this year to use it going forward?

Last question, Cherrysaw : why is your fee so much less then mine? Is it different weeks?

This is unreal- got my bill today:


Last year:
Maintenance Fee(s) $ 395.07

Tax - If Applicable $ 52.74

Membership Fee - If Applicable $ 109.00

Other* $ 0.00

Interest $ 0.00

Late Fees $ 0.00

ARDA ROC PAC Contrib.** $ 5.00

Sub-Total
Total Prior Year Charges $ 561.81


This Year:
Maintenance Fee(s) $ 509.76

Tax - If Applicable $ 67.01

Membership Fee - If Applicable $ 109.00

Other* $ 0.00

Interest $ 0.00

Late Fees $ 0.00

ARDA ROC PAC Contrib.** $ 5.00

Sub-Total
Current Year Charges $ 690.77


Total Due $ 690.77

That is a $128.96 increase. Seems like a lot to me. No wonder a lot of people aren't paying their fees...

Sue

 

[DeniseM]

Hi and welcome to TUG!

Each resort has a board of directors that represents the owners and makes decisions "in the best interest of the owners." Apparently all the BOD's thought a huge increase was a good idea this year....

If you don't pay your MF, they will turn you over to collections, ruin your credit, and eventually foreclose on your ownership...not to mention that you would be placing the burden of your MF's on the shoulders of paying owners.....

 

[Synergist]

Hi and welcome to TUG!

Each resort has a board of directors that represents the owners and makes decisions "in the best interest of the owners." Apparently all the BOD's thought a huge increase was a good idea this year....

If you don't pay your MF, they will turn you over to collections, ruin your credit, and eventually foreclose on your ownership...not to mention that you would be placing the burden of your MF's on the shoulders of paying owners.....

Thanks Denise, So I gather the question is legally is there anything we can do, This could just be the start to a domino effect as you raise prices, more people don't pay and thus they may continue to increase prices... Ultimately in a few years this could double / triple.

 

[DeniseM]

See the following threads regarding actions that Maui and WSJ owners are taking:

http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109911

http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showpost.php?p=818175&postcount=311

 

[Ågent99]

Hi and welcome to TUG!

Each resort has a board of directors that represents the owners and makes decisions "in the best interest of the owners." Apparently all the BOD's thought a huge increase was a good idea this year....

If you don't pay your MF, they will turn you over to collections, ruin your credit, and eventually foreclose on your ownership...not to mention that you would be placing the burden of your MF's on the shoulders of paying owners.....

What if we ALL agree not to pay!! We need to create a "union" of sorts!! :hysterical:

Okay, my bill:

2010 Master Associate Assessment $165.83
2010 Apartment Ownership Assessment $581.77
2010 Vacation Ownership Assessment $1772.00
2010 SVN Membership Fee $113.53
2010 SVN Membership Fee Add'l Week $34.38
2010 ARDA-ROC PAC Contribution $10.00

So I have $2677.51 due on January 4, 2010.

I paid $2025.30 for 2009. A 32% increase?!?! THIS OFFICIALLY SUX!

This is for the WKORV-N.

I have a 2-BD L/O for a week (which usually splits out to 1-BD for 1 week and Studio for 1 week).

 

[xcg001]

Ok, long time lurker furious by the resent events.

I think the only strong way to stop starwood theft from the real resort owners (us) is to throw sock pupet board of director for various HOA. Aren't there a strong laws in Florida in regards to developer influence on the HOA board? We should all take an example from the fight Worldmark owners are fighting against their developer (Wyndham) - they have managed so far to organize almost 1/4 of the ~ 300,000 members on their recent elections.
I think throwing out the stooges that Starwood have planted on various HOA boards should be a much easier task. After all individual resorts are much smaller and to organize owner revolt should require much less effort.
I would personally donate several hundred dollars for a lawsuit against Starwood. I also plan to write to AG of Florida (unfortunately I do not own florida resort nor have I ever attempt to run for one of the starwood HOA boards) to see what our options are against a developer that attempts to "vett" HOA board members.
If anybody has attempted (preferably documented his efford) to run on one of starwood HOA boards and have been denied I think this can be a really strong argument against them.
Another good approach will be to try to organize an owners of relatively small resort (SDO comes to my mind) by collecting contact information of the owners from the county of the resort. I am also ready to donate to someone willing to organize such data collection/mass mailing operation.

 

[jerseygirl]

xcg001 --

I am mining data to collect owner information for Broadway Plantation Phase One. It is my intention to contact approximately 1500* owners and direct them to a website where .... don't want to give too much info here for Starwood to read, but you get the picture.

*Unless someone knows how to purchase the owner names at a reasonable cost, there's only so many hours one can spend looking up the data.

It's a small start ... but I have time on my hands right now and I've had about all I can take from Starwood.

I would love to do the same things at Harborside and WSJ, where an effective owner rental program could go a long way toward reducing the impact of delinquencies. Unfortunately, it's not as easy to find owner data. But, I'm willing to get involved in all efforts involving those resorts as well.

I also think there are great opportunities with the Florida resorts, as Florida tends to have the most detailed owner-protection laws. Your intentions are a great start -- go for it !!!

If everyone just does SOMETHING to stop this madness, progress can and will be made.

-- Jerseygirl

 

[DanCali]

I know it is a hard pill to swallow, but the HOA only generates income from the MF and it has to pay all the bills each month. That is a fact of life with a condominium. If some owners default on their MF, the bills still need to be paid. So the rest of us end up paying more. There is really no other place for the HOA to get the money. They can try to cut costs, but I imagine that everyone would be unhappy if they started closing pools, or not cleaning the grounds, etc. The HOA should make every effort to collect the delinquent MF, and they say that they are. Either you believe them, or you don't.

gregb - it is true that an obligation is an obligation and the bills need to be paid. But what are the bills? What has Starwood done to keep them in check until the recent delinquencies?

Let's not forget that Starwood contributed greatly to us getting to this situation... (i) they were and still are selling these timeshares to quite a few people who cannot really afford them using aggressive sales tactics and easy financing, and (ii) they priced more people out by increasing MFs by 10% on average per year, every year, even when there were no delinquencies and the economy was good.

So now when you have a lot of people who can't pay these ridiculous MFs what should they default on first? Their mortgage/rent, credit cards, or timeshare?

If subprime lending brought down the US whole economy, I'm not sure that SVO is not on a similar track. I wish I end up being very wrong on this and we can all laugh at my panic next year... I'll probably be known as *WoodIsDaBest in that event!

 

[xcg001]

jerseygirl,

I am actually an owner at SBP (Plantation phase) and it will be a great think if you can organize this for our resort but I think it will be harder than St. John for 2 reasons: 1st Starwood probably has a lot of deeds (and probably votes coming with such deeds) from the old section just because they get these as a trade-ins from the people "upgrading" to Palmeto section and 2nd I think SBP is relatively large resort and a lot of owners may be still part of the SVN and may fear they will loose such benefits if we elect independent HOA. Anyway when you get ready to launch you website PM me an email where I can PayPal you some donation for the hard work.

One think that I can think of for cheaper data-mining can be hiring some college/high school kids for help. I have no idea how to access Horry county info - all the actual pages from the registrar of deeds come empty on the Horry county website so it may help with only getting the deed/page numbers and then physically looking at the pages in the local register in MB.

 

[RLG]

I also wonder how many units are being rented out to section 8 parties to keep the income coming in.

Do you have some reason to think this is being done at all? I certainly have never heard of it.

 

[cherrysaw]

Synergist

"Last question, Cherrysaw : why is your fee so much less then mine? Is it different weeks?"


I assume mine are less because we own EOY (every other year) which PO's me more because I just realized that annual owners pay the $109 starwood membership fee & USE their timeshare every year. I pay $109 EVERY year but only get to use mine ONCE in a two year period. Makes it seem like I pay that fee double for only one use...
Sue

 

[He Hate Me]

....we own EOY (every other year) which PO's me more because I just realized that annual owners pay the $109 starwood membership fee & USE their timeshare every year. I pay $109 EVERY year but only get to use mine ONCE in a two year period. Makes it seem like I pay that fee double for only one use...

Don't forget about the $20 administrative fee that Starwood charges each EOY owner for the luxury of non-annual usage. It may be a little easier to stomach if you think about the membership to II which is included in your SVN fee. This allows you to travel on Getaways during off-use years. It's not equal to $129 ($109+20), but......

HHM

 

[DeniseM]

He Hate Me! Long time no see!

 

[jw0]

Been thinking of these issues, and was wondering if this is a potential solution.

Presumably, the "reserves" we pay into are partly for pay for long-term maintenance/upkeep issues, and perhaps an eventual refurbishment. (When I was at SBP last month, I did hear rumblings from the salesmen that the old phase may be refurbished soon, but then again you know what they say about salesmen's words) So somewhere (again, presumably) there is a balance of cash stored up to pay for this.

Is it legal to tap into these funds for this year? Is this even a good idea? As a group of owners, can we say, "let's postpone the refurbishment for a year or two" and therefore apply the some of the $ towards the delinquent fees?

I don't know enough about real estate to know if this idea is good or not. It does seem that many owners are struggling, and increasing the fees so much may just prompt more owners to stop paying and compound the problem. If it's legal to tap into the reserve funds, perhaps this idea should be explored and/or proposed to the board. Again, when I was at SBP, I was completely satisfied with our room in the "old" phase; paying for a refurbishment would seem to be a poor use of capital.

-John.

 

[gregb]

Been thinking of these issues, and was wondering if this is a potential solution.

Is it legal to tap into these funds for this year? Is this even a good idea? As a group of owners, can we say, "let's postpone the refurbishment for a year or two" and therefore apply the some of the $ towards the delinquent fees?
-John.

John, The reserves are a capital fund and I think that the Board is legally prohibited from tapping this fund for operating expenses. While your suggestion might make sense today, the rules are setup to prevent the board from gutting the capital funds.

The reserve funds should collect enough over time to pay for the expected replacement of items as they reach the end of their useful life. Without the reserve, every time they need to paint the units, they would have to do a special assessment. But of course, a major refurbishment may cost more than the amount set aside, so a special assessment for that sometimes ends up being needed.

I believe that several of the buildings in the south side of WKORV have been repainted and some of the furniture has been replaced at 5 years. I think they had enough in the reserves so that they did not need a special assessment for this. I am not sure, since my ownership is on the north side.

Greg

 

[jw0]

John, The reserves are a capital fund and I think that the Board is legally prohibited from tapping this fund for operating expenses. While your suggestion might make sense today, the rules are setup to prevent the board from gutting the capital funds.
Greg

Hi, Greg. Thanks for your insight. Just wishful thinking on my part, I guess. At SBP, I noticeed that the reserve expenses this year was $147.83, which would go quite a ways to make up for the $157.09 in "uncollectible expenses" (for the 2BR I own). Thus, even if we didn't technically dip into the fund, but just contributed less into it this year, that would have helped reduce the MF increase..

Its unfortunate. You hear of businesses and municipal governments hronically underfunding their pension plans, and somehow that's ok. I had hoped that if we somehow petitioned our board something could have been arranged.

Hopefully, the board realizes what extraordinary times this is, and will decide to postpone any refurbishment if there was one in the works. I could live without the granite countertops for a few more years if needed.

-John.

 

[lily28]

sheraton broadway plantation, 1 bedroom

$505.48, an increase of $100 over last yr or 25%

 

[James1975NY]

Harborside Resort at Atlantis I & II

Does anyone have their bills for HRA I & II?

 

[Ken555]

Is there a legal limit regarding the increase a Board may make for timeshares without requiring a vote of the owners? In California residential associations, as an example, can not increase dues more than 20% without a full vote of all owners. Obviously, timeshares are a different situation, but it seems strange to me that the Board is allowed to increase without limits.

 

[DanCali]

Is there a legal limit regarding the increase a Board may make for timeshares without requiring a vote of the owners? In California residential associations, as an example, can not increase dues more than 20% without a full vote of all owners. Obviously, timeshares are a different situation, but it seems strange to me that the Board is allowed to increase without limits.

I don't believe Starwood has any legal limits on how much MFs can go up. We've been discussing for the past few weeks (in other threads) how this is a conflict of interest since they get 10%-20% off the top. However, if the limit was 20%, it wouldn't make much difference since it's the consistent 10%-15% across the years increases that destroy the system and doubled MFs in the past 5 years.

Worldmark has a 5% annual cap written into their owner bylaws (and annual increases were actualy less) - but I am not aware of other systems with a similar commitment to owners.

The fact that the Worldmark system sustains itself means that MFs across their resorts really do not go up by more than 5% on average, but I think their point system is set up that if one resort has costs go up by 7% and one has costs go up by 3% they can subsidize each other. Starwood's separately managed resorts cannot do that, but if ALL resorts have MFs go up by 8% or more (and up to 25% in a few cases) then something is terribly wrong with the system.

 

[pianodinosaur]

A 2 bedroom summer season Sheraton Mountain Vista just sold on ebay for $1.00. The listing agent was sellingtimeguys. The MFs were advertised as $1050.17. It certainly appears that as MFs go up the resale value goes down.

 

[Ken555]

I don't believe Starwood has any legal limits on how much MFs can go up.

I suspect you're correct, but it would be nice to get a definitive answer.

Even in the case of California's imposed limits, emergency methods of raising fees exist (but in this instance, the info needs to be communicated with the owners, etc). I don't believe Florida timeshares have such a limit (I recall asking the question a year or two ago on TUG, but don't recall the answer...).

 

[Ken555]

Worldmark has a 5% annual cap written into their owner bylaws (and annual increases were actualy less) - but I am not aware of other systems with a similar commitment to owners.

The fact that the Worldmark system sustains itself means that MFs across their resorts really do not go up by more than 5% on average, but I think their point system is set up that if one resort has costs go up by 7% and one has costs go up by 3% they can subsidize each other. Starwood's separately managed resorts cannot do that, but if ALL resorts have MFs go up by 8% or more (and up to 25% in a few cases) then something is terribly wrong with the system.

Do you think it appropriate to compare Worldmark with Starwood? I wasn't aware they were on par with each other. A more appropriate comparison may be Marriott (and I believe it's been posted that Marriott resorts haven't increased as much this year). Regardless, we all acknowledge that something fishy is going on with SVN regarding the MFs.

I'm now beginning to wonder if the Board(s) even considered taking a loan out to assist with the (temporary) increase in MFs due to some owners not paying. I realize that loans are difficult to obtain currently, but HOAs are traditionally (timeshares may be harder, even so) excellent credit risks for banks. A loan may have increased my MF by $5 this year rather than $66 at SVR (as an example), and could/should be paid back next year in full when funds are recovered by foreclosure, acquisition, collections, etc. But, if the Boards want the owners to get used to a higher MF then this is certainly one way to do it, and then next year - assuming defaults are not as common - they can increase other areas of the budget and then be able to say the MFs didn't increase much, etc.

In any case, the bottom line is that the Starwood resort Board's appear to make decisions for the benefit of Starwood and not the owners. We've seen this type of behavior in the past, and though they spin it owners obviously have little input or consideration in their decision making process.

I sympathize with all of you WKORV owners. The increase there is simply unreal.

 

[Weez]

See the following threads regarding actions that Maui and WSJ owners are taking:

http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109911

http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showpost.php?p=818175&postcount=311

Hey Denise, its not a big deal but the second link, links to an individual post and not the thread. Most can figure it out but not sure everyone realizes its happening.

 

[MON2REY]

Do we know.......is Starwood spreading the cost of delinquent accounts across all properties or are we paying for deliquencies in our own villas? If they are spreading them across all, how are they determining the spread?