[ 2012 ] Fairmont / Sunchaser / Northwynd official thread with lawsuit info!

[Marusj]

I am chocked...

I am reading all the posts and considering my options and the more I read the more convinced I am that this is a scam. Nobody mentioned this previously but I found information that they have sold there 14900 shares, and they are charging us all the "renovation" fee. I did very quick and "dirty" calculations. I assumed that not all people own the full share and there are some owning just the bi-annual timeshare. Considering that the full owners pay between $4000 and $4400, and bi-annuals are paying between $1800 and $2300, I assumed average "renovation" fee at $3000 (and I think this is the low end), and multiplied it by the number of leases (14900) and I got almost $45 millions...Whoa, nice chunk of money...it is much more than their requirements for the reno...I am inclined to less and less trust them. Crappy situation. Best of luck to all of us!

 

[Dorferman]

Good Work

Yes, I did some similar mathematics - bravo! If it talks like a rat....

The problem with paying these people anything is that it is just like paying a blackmailer. You can never be sure that it is the final payment.

Personally, I am holding off writing cheque(s) until we avail ourselves of legal advice, hopefully from one or both of these class action lawyers. I see considerable benefit to us acting in as much concert as possible.

If I were a betting man, I would bet that this whole thing is going to go under and our timeshares with it (a la the one in Canmore). Sadly, that may be the best possible outcome for everyone.

 

[Scammed22]

A concern >>>there are two lawyers mentioned on this form...I think we should all have the same one. I contacted Jim by email and contacted http://kelliehamiltonlaw.com/ hope to get answers by next week. No point in having different lawyers...... Stronger by the numbers.

 

[Dorferman]

Lawyers

I agree unless they are working very closely together.

 

[Aussie girl]

I sent an email last week to the law firm, but have yet to hear anything back.

 

[RandRseeker]

These are legitimate concerns Robb. I have not spoken to the lawyer yet either but if this is a class action there will be no fees. They get a percentage from success or nothing.

I have no knowledge of how class actions work, but I do believe that the lawyer would get paid out of any money that is recovered through the court case. If the owners are simply trying to avoid paying the renovation fees and not really suing for any money, then who will pay the lawyers in this case? (sorry if I am not understanding )

As much as I hate to do it, I think that paying the buy out cost is in my best interest. I have a feeling that this reno will go ahead no matter what, and that in the end the remaining owners will pay - either through this assessment or through increased maintenance fees.

I have had enough of Fairmont and the escalating annual maintenance fees, and it appears that I won't even be able to give my unit away.

 

[cmg]

Sunchaser Scam!

This whole Sunchaser timeshare proposal stinks. They have now applied to the BC Supreme Court to modify the terms of the Timeshare trust document to give them the right to remove land and buildings from the resort trust if the property is no longer subject to a timeshare interest. So here is how I see it working:
1. Sunchaser sends you a big renovation bill which effectively forces you to surrender your timeshare interest and pay the inflated cancellation fee. The only way to force you to sell is to hit you with a bill over which you have no control. This opens up the opportunity for them to remove property from the trust.
2. Since you are out, Sunchaser can move the resort lands, held in trust for the timeshare owner, out to themselves. This assumes they will be granted this right on June 20, 2013, the scheduled hearing date.
3. They then sell the units (removed from the trust) as apartments, strata units or they tear them down, subdivide the land into residential lots and sell them at a premium as golf course lots. They make a ton of money.
4. The remaining timeshare owners are forced in to a building of no commecial value for their time share week.
5. The timeshare owners are spoon fed whatever Sunchaser decides to give them. They have no control over the maintenance fees or what they get for their money. So eventually they elect to surrender their timeshare week as well.
6. Well look at that. Sunchaser now owns all the lands and buildings and got you to pay again to get out of something of value that you owned and paid for. They got you to pay them to take your land and buildings away from you. Isn't that a great scam!

Face it. Sooner or later Sunchaser will force you will surrender your timeshare interest. They want the land!! So the only issue is really the cancellation fee.
I think we should launch a lawsuit challenging the cancellation fee since they are already getting our land and buildings when we cancel. Should we have to pay them cash on top of this??

 

[TravellinMom]

Scam?

Has anyone googled - Deloitte, Kirk Wankel, Fair Sky Resources and Canadian Western Bank? Interesting reading.

There is a Kirk Wankel, CFO on the Dec 10 2012 letter from Sunchaser Villas. Same person?

The northwyndownersassociation.ca does not work (under construction).

 

[Prairie Girl]

Sunchaser Scammers!

Contact Mr. Belfry. His e-mail is listed here. He has 92 people signed so far to challenge this.

My fear is after they collect all the cancellation money they will then file for bankruptcy as took place several years ago at Canmore!

 

[DarkLord]

Suprised no one brought this up:

Seems like this reno game is the favorite game Northwynd plays.

http://www.redweek.com/forums/messages?thread_id=17251

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/rancho-banderas-c3151.html

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopi...as-Puerto_Vallarta_Pacific_Coast.html#6019510

 

[Chilliaces]

SCAM

Was Northwynd the owner of that defunked Canmore property?

 

[Jaded_Owner]

They want us to leave (after they take our money of course)

In reading the posted doccuments on the Sunchaser website, Page 7 point 8 of the following doccument...

http://sunchaservillas.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Matkin-Affidavit-sworn-April-15-2013.pdf

...states that they need 66.67% of the vote to make the required changes to the collective contracts, so they NEED as many of the owners to leave as possible as they then gain control of those votes.

There is also a big difference between repairs to foundations and plumbing, and a full scale gut and renovation. How is it they can impose this assessment for a full scale renovation (a capital improvement to their asset) without consulting the owners on the design and plan, and without receiving 66.67% of the vote in favour..

We didnt even know this was happening until we received our letter in the mail...didnt even get the brochure some have mentioned.

 

[Wendy T]

How the rich get richer.

I just opened our "Renovation Project Fee" envelope this morning. OMG these guys have played us for suckers. First, my husband and I and my brother and his wife were stupid enough to fall for the conversion from a 40 year contract to a life lease-what they called the "Legacy for Life"-, meaning we paid close to $5000.00-mistake!! Now we likely "own" either nothing or a whole lot of debt. What a legacy! This is so upsetting as in the past we have enjoyed our timeshare ownership in Fairmont, and we exchanged for many beautiful properties. We encouraged others to buy timeshares as it was working so well for us. We certainly never saw the wolf around the corner. Increasingly we have not been able to access exchanges that we would like, and we have not been able to book into Fairmont either. How does that work when you can not actually stay at your home resort??? Now they want a considerable amount of more money from us (we have a gold annual and a biannual prime). The maintenance fees have climbed every year (over the cost of living by a considerable amount), but the quality of our experiences as decreased. Our "renovation" bill is $6400.00 and that's on top of the maintenance fees that we just paid that were $2000.00. Pretty clear that this would be a game that they would pull every few years. Not a chance we can afford this as we getting close to our retirement years. We also had to pay to renew our RCI membership. On top of all that even though they want your RCI membership paid in advance, they changed the date that they post our available points from the beginning of the year to the 1st of June. From reading all these postings, it is clear that this a scam-I don't think any of should pay either, we will just continue to be victims. I have email both lawyers. See where this all goes I guess.

 

[isabela60]

Fairmont Scam??

We are also outraged of this situation! We know they are upgrading/renovating the resort on ongoing basis, but isn't it that's why we pay high cost of maintenance fees? What happened to the reserve fund? This is totally poor management, poor tactics and they are making us time share owners to pay for all of these mess. If we stay and pay the reno fees, does it guarantee us that it will never happen again?? It is so hard to trust these people again!! And how could you swallow the option of leaving but you have to pay a lot of money?? Cmon', stop milking us! We earn for a living too, we can't just give away money just like that!

 

[DaveO]

Scam!

Northwynd is a scam!! In order to even pay the fees they're requesting that you agree that they can #1 change your contract at anytime and #2 that they can move the "lesser" value villas out so that they can give them to themselves!! What a SCAM!!! This must be a sick joke!! I love their wording when they explain they "must" do this in order to save the resort.

We must make a stand against Northwynd as they have already ran this scam and got away with it in Mexico with Rancho Banderas, villas were giving to ex-Fairmont employees as part of their termination package. I can see the villas they're looking to remove from the resort going to these same individuals once they fold up fairmont as soon as they collect some of the 9.5 million they're trying to collect from all of us owners in the form of "Management Fees" for their 45 million dollar moon landing project!!

This is not a joke if they win that hearing in June we all lose our timeshares + MONEY!!

DO NOT SEND NORTHWYND ANY MONEY, they're in breach of the contract you signed with them!! If you do you are agreeing to the terms in the letter they sent of #1 change your contract at anytime and #2 that they can move the "lesser" value villas out so that they can give them to themselves!!

Please do yourself and every owner at Fairmont a favor and contact thebelfrys@shaw.ca, he has many people that are going to contest Northwynd and you should join before it's to late!

 

[twoofus]

Feeling duped

Having received our 'Freedom to Choose, Reason to Stay' package in the mail, and being alerted to this forum by friends (fellow victims) and reading the various comments ...we have sent an email to both the 'thebelfrys@shaw.ca' and the www.kelliehamiltonlaw.com firm to 'sign up' with both as interested parties in the class action suit. We will be anxiously awaiting some word from either or both of them.

Contacting the Resort Villa Managment Company would be to us like entering the devils lair. We have lost all trust in corresponding with this company.

Thankfully there is this forum for us to participate in, even just to vent. We will post whatever information or guidance we receive from either of the contacts mentioned above.

 

[jekebc]

Unable to assist more Owners

message from the belfrys.
I have been completely swamped by contacts from almost 300 owners such that I simply ca't keep up with responses. Regrettably I must turn away new contacts and can offer little advice other than to seek legal counsel. My understanding is both lawyers that are involved -Kellie Hamilton and Michael Geldert are also swamped and not taking new clients.
The most important is to make a submission to the scheduled hearing before the May 31 deadline. It requires an affidavit, so best to use your own legal counsel to submit Form 67 (BC courts website).
Please consider not paying any monies to Northwynd pending the June 20 hearing. Remember you can be in arrears for up to 90 days before they can take action to terminate your timeshare. If they have already breached the terms of the lease do they have the right to enforce collection action?
Best wishes to all
Jim Belfry

 

[Judythreetimes]

I had a long conversation with the person at Vacation Services who had no clue on the questions that I was asking so I was passed on to someone at Project Developments who previously worked at Royal Host.

Firstly, I questioned where in my contract a capital expenditure such that they are proposing would be allowed. Under the clause of Special Assessments it is not covered and in the clause Operating Costs and Reserve for Refurbishing they believe this expenditure is covered. Quite frankly a reserve is something that is created over a period of time. They are funds that are earmarked by a firm from its retained earnings for future use. The clause talks about the refurbishment of the villas but no specific mention to capital expenditures as suggested. Seems to me that there should be a capital expenditure clause and it does not exist. They are confusing operating costs which are short term in nature along with a reserve that is established over some period of time. This capital expenditure is neither.

I did not convert to RCI as I was concerned that there was some underlying premise why they wanted the unit holders to change. I challenged the individual on the phone that they had a conversion because the existing contract that they had was not sufficient enough to cover Sunchaser in an event such as this. This is a company that went through CCAA and the owner just inherited the existing arrangement. She first said that the two contracts were the same then later mentioned that there were some changes but she would not get into the specifics. Seemed to me there are some deficiencies in the old contract but I am not a lawyer.

I then asked what happens if I decide to pay my amount and they are not successful on having their forecasted amount of unit holders pay (they just decide to go into default). Obviously that becomes an increased liability to the existing unit holders so the number they are providing is not a firm number and could be substantially higher. I asked what they forecasted for the take up and she suggested that she had done this once before with Royal Host and the take up was around 80%. She would not provide what they have forecasted for Sunchaser and not sure why she wouldn't. Perhaps it is higher which is just another risk.

I asked about the trading power at Interval and noticed lately that requests that I was able to the get in the past I no longer could get. The response was that was because of negative customer reviews and even after the renovation is complete it is going to take a couple of years for the trading power to return. Not that comforting.

Lastly, being a little difficult I asked why a unit holder with X amount of years would pay the same amount as another unit holder that converted to a deeded title. If this business is run properly an annual reserve should be put aside for the next renovation that takes place. So if that is the case, all the unit holders are funding the next renovation for the unit holders who are now deeded or hold the units into perpetuity. That means I am paying for a renovation in the future that I may never get any use out of as my time lapses. Why would one contribute to this kind of arrangement.

I thought I would post the information that I found out for others to see. I am going to have this document reviewed and get a legal opinion on my rights as a unit holder because at the end of the day one can speculate forever what is right and what is wrong. I am concerned what I will hear back is that contract will be open to interpretation which is neither black and white. If I knew the amount they were asking for was the amount and nothing more I may consider but that is something they can't guarantee. So the amount may between $3-4,000 now but may fall out substantially higher. Who makes an additional investment into something that is a continuing liability with no upside?

We are curently in a dispute with Sunchaser. To say we feel we have been totally mislead and downright lied to is an understatement. So that I am not repeating what you are doing, could you please respond? It would be very appreciated. I am so angry right now. Thank you!

 

[Judythreetimes]

My husband and I will happily join any class action law suit!! We are so angry right now. They have screwed with us since we bought this. In fact I would say, they downright lied and totally misrepresented this time share!!

 

[Judythreetimes]

Pissed of with Sunchaser

A concern >>>there are two lawyers mentioned on this form...I think we should all have the same one. I contacted Jim by email and contacted http://kelliehamiltonlaw.com/ hope to get answers by next week. No point in having different lawyers...... Stronger by the numbers.

We want to add our name to the list of growing pissed off time share owners.
We are going on a 2 week road trip, leaving Friday, but you can call my cell any time 780-404-7594 Thank you! I am so happy to have found this forum!

 

[Judythreetimes]

How can they get away with this? There is nothing in the original contract. I refuse to pay an extra $1600 to them, for them to buy us out???? It makes no sense!! I am really looking forward to reading the Financial Statement that supposedly will be on line in June. I will believe it when I see it. In the meantime I am going to warn anybody and everybody to stay away from Sunchaser. I am also emailing RCI my displeasure with their association with this rip off.

 

[isabela60]

KellieHamilton responded fairly quickly! We are joining this class action lawsuit!

 

[AbeJ]

hello all, what a mess, just got my "offer" by mail 2 days ago and had heard nothing of this prior. I am confused by jekebc's post Mar 11 saying no new clients and the one I've tagged saying Keelie replied. I emailed Keelie yesterday and today called and voicemail is full, and website has been changed to remove previous "Fairmont" link. if she is still at it then great hope I hear back. emailed belfrys but just now so not sure what's current there. any other suggestions appreciated !!

 

[AbeJ]

and not to get fragmented lawyers as some suggested against, but if anyone has a lawyer in Edmonton region who has been in this, I'd appreciate knowing of such. would rather join a larger collection, but worst case, don't want to start from zero ... Thanks

 

[Cdnpt]

and not to get fragmented lawyers as some suggested against, but if anyone has a lawyer in Edmonton region who has been in this, I'd appreciate knowing of such. would rather join a larger collection, but worst case, don't want to start from zero ... Thanks

I live in Pennsylvania and just got my notice in the mail today. Unfortunately it looks like I too am too late to sign up with either of the lawyers involved. If anyone else knows of an alternative law firm handling this situation please let me know.