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

CindyD

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New program coming for fairmont

We have met with our lawyer and gave him all the paper work and he has written a letter recommending we pay the fee to surrender in the Resort and should comply within the recommended time period.

Would like to hear if anyone else has received simiular legal advise

Thank you
 
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KandyApple

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While I share concerns about the ability of Northwynd to continue into the future there are a couple points I would like to make.
1. I own a similar timeshare unit at Meadow Lake and the annual maintenance fees are virtually the same as the ones at Fairmont. I only purchased at Fairmont a couple years ago so I can't help but think that maybe the owners that are complaining about such a large increase in fees have contributed to the problem. Granted the previous resort managers must have completely mismanaged the resort, they should have been collecting more maintenance fees to make sure the necessary upgrades were done on an ongoing basis.
2. If Northwynd was going to run with our money why are they giving us 4 years interest free to pay the Reno fee? I am sure if they tried to abscond with the funds they would not be all that successful in sueing me for uncollected amounts.
Maybe I am a bit naive but I am not as upset by their proposal as many here are.

It seems clear that the resort needs upgrading and no reserve exists. Whether Northwynd is trying to scam us is pretty much speculation, if I opt for the $100 a month I will have a year or so to see whether they do or not.
 

Dorferman

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Do Not Pay (Yet or Ever)

If you look at the last few pages of this site and links you will get a flavor for what is happening here. There is no lessee/owner board here so we timeshare holders are not parties to the run down of this place. We have been reliant upon information from Sunchaser which has just now burst upon us with these massive renovation plans. Their real plan is to drive all of us out and then redevelop the property with your $100/month and other monies they extort from other "owners" and timeshare lessees. Your money will help finance their battle against the rest of us.
 

Spark1

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HI-does anyone know what the new program they are launching for the old time owners at Fairmont/Sunchaser villas for 2013? The woman at office says they will be doing some new program for owners that have been there a while right away?:)

We have met with our lawyer and gave him all the paper work and he has written a letter recommending we pay the fee to surrender in the Resort and should comply within the recommended time period.

Would like to hear if anyone else has received simiular legal advise

Thank you[/QUOhTE]
 

Spark1

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We have met with our lawyer and gave him all the paper work and he has written a letter recommending we pay the fee to surrender in the Resort and should comply within the recommended time period.

Would like to hear if anyone else has received simiular legal advise

Thank you

Your lawyer is giving you bad advice. The court case allowing Northwyn to charge these high renovation fees will not be through the court until June 20/2013. Northwyn is trying to get the worthless timeshare people to build them a new resort. Hire khamilton@kelliehamiltonlaw.com
 

THE AVENGER

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There are several questions that have been bothering me regarding the Fairmont situation that we are all affected by.
1. Who are we dealing with?
As I understand it!
Several years ago (6 or 7) we were offered an investment opportunity by a group from Fairmont called FRPL (Fairmont Resort Properties Limited) which promised to pay 12% on our investment. The key presenter of the scheme was Ed Nochalt. Colin Knight was there as well as others of the Fairmont group. We never invested but several people invested large sums into this plan. Some I know personally invested $100,000-$150,000 and much more. Interest payments were made for a few months then stopped. When Fairmont went into receivership, several of these investors (whom I know personally), formed a company called Northwynd and took over the assets of Fairmont. They knew nothing about running a timeshare company so left the same administration in place (who had run it into the ground by skimming large sums into their pockets).
These investors (Northwynd), have devised a scheme (using a very clever lawyer) to recover some of their investment. The cash call for refurbishing will likely be funneled off to these investors by calling it repayment of loans or payments to creditors. This may be legal from the so called trust funds. There are no indications where the funds from those who are opting out will be allocated to. They are to go to a trust account of the lawyer. What are the conditions of this trust and what is it for? I understand it will go into the pockets of the Northwynd investors group.
2. Who are the principles of Northwynd?
3. Where did Northmount come from?
4. If we indicate that we are opting out, and we pay nothing towards it (or a token amount), would we be subject to the 2% per month? There is no mention of how this would be handled. Maybe this could be stretched out for several months or maybe years at say $10 a month since we as pensioners can only afford that much. I don’t think they can start action if you are attempting to pay the debt.
5. We also own at Lake Okanagan. How is this going to affect this resort since it is owned by Northwynd?
6. I would expect that most of those who are taking the option to pay the refurbishing fee would take the $100/month option. This will not put enough cash in the hands of Northwynd to proceed with any sort of refurbishing and the whole scheme will collapse. No bank will advance credit to anyone in the financial condition of Northwynd.
7. I believe Northwynd has a questionable name in the Valley, so they may find it hard to get contractors to work for them unless it was cash up front.
8. How does this affect our status with Interval International? We have 4 weeks banked with them. Will we still have a membership with them and be able to use Getaways?
9. Some owners have looked at engaging a lawyer to act on their behalf. The only thing a lawyer can do for you is take your money and give you some advice. Some owners think they can start a class-action-suit. This is not feasible since there is no loss to be recovered in this case. THESE ARE SOME OF MY CONCERNS AND I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE SOME OTHER’S IDEAS!
 

DarkLord

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Thanks Avenger for sharing the info. How this will play out is purely my educated conjecture. It doesn't seem like the lease owners have any rights with the liabilities that come with it. If the assets (the villas) go into receivership again, the owners rank dead last among creditors and likely won't have anything to recover from.

The June court hearing is an important event. Personally, I don't think Northwynd have the resources to go after the owners for few thousands dollars each. There are 15000-19000 of us, many of whom do not reside in Canada. It is extremely not cost effective to launch thousands of small claim suits to get judgements. And then try to enforce the judgements.

I might be wrong but I have never heard of such court precedent. What is clear to me is that Northwynd is just trying to intimidate the owners and whatever amounts they can get in the shortest period of time is a plus to them. Some will cave for sure but I suspect many won't which makes the renovation a complete impossibility from the get go.
 

Spark1

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There are several questions that have been bothering me regarding the Fairmont situation that we are all affected by.
1. Who are we dealing with?
As I understand it!
Several years ago (6 or 7) we were offered an investment opportunity by a group from Fairmont called FRPL (Fairmont Resort Properties Limited) which promised to pay 12% on our investment. The key presenter of the scheme was Ed Nochalt. Colin Knight was there as well as others of the Fairmont group. We never invested but several people invested large sums into this plan. Some I know personally invested $100,000-$150,000 and much more. Interest payments were made for a few months then stopped. When Fairmont went into receivership, several of these investors (whom I know personally), formed a company called Northwynd and took over the assets of Fairmont. They knew nothing about running a timeshare company so left the same administration in place (who had run it into the ground by skimming large sums into their pockets).
These investors (Northwynd), have devised a scheme (using a very clever lawyer) to recover some of their investment. The cash call for refurbishing will likely be funneled off to these investors by calling it repayment of loans or payments to creditors. This may be legal from the so called trust funds. There are no indications where the funds from those who are opting out will be allocated to. They are to go to a trust account of the lawyer. What are the conditions of this trust and what is it for? I understand it will go into the pockets of the Northwynd investors group.
2. Who are the principles of Northwynd?
3. Where did Northmount come from?
4. If we indicate that we are opting out, and we pay nothing towards it (or a token amount), would we be subject to the 2% per month? There is no mention of how this would be handled. Maybe this could be stretched out for several months or maybe years at say $10 a month since we as pensioners can only afford that much. I don’t think they can start action if you are attempting to pay the debt.
5. We also own at Lake Okanagan. How is this going to affect this resort since it is owned by Northwynd?
6. I would expect that most of those who are taking the option to pay the refurbishing fee would take the $100/month option. This will not put enough cash in the hands of Northwynd to proceed with any sort of refurbishing and the whole scheme will collapse. No bank will advance credit to anyone in the financial condition of Northwynd.
7. I believe Northwynd has a questionable name in the Valley, so they may find it hard to get contractors to work for them unless it was cash up front.
8. How does this affect our status with Interval International? We have 4 weeks banked with them. Will we still have a membership with them and be able to use Getaways?
9. Some owners have looked at engaging a lawyer to act on their behalf. The only thing a lawyer can do for you is take your money and give you some advice. Some owners think they can start a class-action-suit. This is not feasible since there is no loss to be recovered in this case. THESE ARE SOME OF MY CONCERNS AND I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE SOME OTHER’S IDEAS!
What are you going to do knowing all this
 

tugbowl

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This is dirty legal maneuver. There are people organized to take class action. If Northwyne win on June 20, we are screwed. There are opinions that Northwyne may not likely to win because it has breach numerous contract clause prior, and hopefully forcing them to nullified the lease over time without us being criminally charged.

It is just a personal speculation -- FILLING Form 67 before May 30 as suggested by some poster appears as a form of insurance against default on the leasee part, as withheld payment subject to pending judgement is not default. It also serve as dissent for affected interest parties against Northwyne's partition trying to upheld their "right" to change rules governing the leasee contract.

Most importantly, beyond June 20, the leasee needs to be organized as a single entity instead of being fragmented. 10,000 leasee x $3,000 each is $30 millions. I am sure a fraction of that, said a couple of millions spend on legal advices can cause Northeyne some headache, IF AND ONLY IF the leasee are INFORMED and not broken into several subgroups and many individuals due to apathy, or awaiting others to champion their grievance. It is a classic case of divided and conquered, and can only be addressed by attrition of the commoners standing together, hopefully with leadership if lucky.

Finally, beware of potential spooks.
 

Lloyd E

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Have representation June20/2013 Hearing

The financial proposal of the new developer of Sunchaser Vacation Villas , Northwynd Resort Properties (Northmont), is patented unfair to all lessees and , pertaining to the fee for cancellation of lease, is very presumptuous that the developers wholly owned Resort Villa Management Ltd. will be the manager for the next 20 years.
The developer (Northwyn, Northmont) deals with selling time share and the manager (Northwyn Northmont) deals with operating the resort.
How did we get in this position. The Vacation lease gives the manager (Owned by the developer) 15% of monies spent from the refurbishment account and the operating account. There is the incentive to spend more to make more. The lessees are then charged more each year to increase the income of the management company (Developer).
The lessees have been contributing to the refurbishment account on inception of the development and it should have adequately covered unit furnishing replacement. A large amount was spent on other projects outside of the mandated uses. I suspect, in the past, to build more villas instead of sales revenue. One multimillion dollar expenditure to repair the foundation of the 7000 block should have been partially covered by the architect and construction company that performed the faulty work. Is the construction contractor and the developer one in the same? The $630,000 spent to replace the deck on #500 villa is questionable. The list goes on as the developer gets 15% of monies spent. When Northwyn took over in 2010 they gave a concession of only charging $1,000,000 instead of the 15%. The money tree had been shaken too hard but since then it has been 15%. The lessees have had no oversight from a lessees association since the 1990s.
We now have a proposal from the developer (Northmont) to renovate the resort (not refurbish the existing) and every like lease pays the same regardless of years left on their lease (Patently unfair). The exit proposal charges lessees to cancel their lease based on lost revenue to the developers management company (Again presumptuous on behalf of the developer that its management company will manage the resort for the next 20 years).
The BC court hearing June 20th , deals with the Trustee cooperating with Northmont on the restructuring and renovation. The trustee holds title of the lands on behalf of the lessees and Northmont. The trustee should represent our interests but is in conflict with the developer interests. The affidavit by Kirk Wankel (Representing Northmont and Northwynd) April 16,2013 states that they have the right to unilateral change based on Modification of Lease clauses in the lease agreements. This is debateable and could halt the proposal but if not, the lessees may get some adjustments to the amounts demanded based on years left on the lease. For those who want out it can be pointed out that it takes 51% of the owners to remove Resort Villa Management Ltd and therefore their claim to 20 years of management fees as a payout to cancel the lease is frivolous. It may take a separate application to court to order all proceeds from the renovation charges be spent on the timeshare units and common use facilities but our lawyers should make the point. The developer would love to have you pay for renovation of properties he is taking out of the Resort. The charge for paying past loans should be denied. Bank loans for past refurbishing and maintenance costs should be carried as normal course of business expense.
Bottom line, get a lawyer to represent you at the hearing.
More revelations are appearing daily on TUG that fill in the blanks.
 

morena

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Could someone please tell us how to organize and unite together? I agree that this is the best way to make a difference. It looks like from earlier posts that lawyers who started the class action suits have closed them to new people. I thought they usually advertised for as many people as possible. We only received our notice of assessment yesterday!! We are in the US and we certainly don't want to pay a lawyer who's only advice is to pay the fees and get out. We could go on two vacations with the money they are charging us to get out! No one seems to be concerned about the fact that we are all losing vacations that we have already paid for. We are only biennial but that is ten lost vacations. I think they should be compensating us for stealing our future vacations, not charging us to steal them away from us. I agree with the person who wrote before, they want the land that our time shares sit on.
 

DaveO

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Cash grab?

Wow all the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place.

This is definitely just a cash grab by the Northwynd owners that put a serious amount of cash up for their investment as per The Avenger's post. They want their money back and it looks like they will be folding up shop after trying to extort whatever money they can. In the contract it says you can be 90 days in arrears.

I urge everyone to file the form 67 before the May 30th deadline with the court in BC and block their attempt to #1 Change our timeshares and #2 Take land out of the trust. The more people that petition the court the less likely they will win.
 

condomama

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So if they lose in court, that would be good - except that Northwynd will then close the resort?
 

condomama

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What happens to the people who bought into RCI points at Sunchaser a couple of years ago? Someone I know who did that, hasn't received any of these same documents or an invoice. He had no idea what I was talking about - and still would not, had I not refered him to the website. Some of the Sunchaser information we received suggests that a small portion of the RCI funds received were attributed to the 7000 building foundation renovation, and as such those points owners will not receive a further invoice until 2014. I'm quoting 3rd hand, so is that a correct understanding of the situation for them?
 
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twoofus

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New Group ..

Could someone please tell us how to organize and unite together?


How many class action suits can be organized? Is their a limit to a number of participants on a class action suit? I am interested in the query (above quote) as well. How / where ? Let's unite somehow. Hoping to acquire some legal insight and will add what I glean later today.
 

DarkLord

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So if they lose in court, that would be good - except that Northwynd will then close the resort?

If Northwynd loses, then closing the resort is likely the scenario. Ironically, that might be the best case scenario for most of the owners.

If Nortwynd wins, who knows how many of these special assessment they can cook up?
 

Tacoma

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Can someone with better technical skills than mine please provide a link to form 67. A lot of things bother me but I especially dislike that we have to decide before they even get court approval for what they want to do.
 

morena

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Kelie Hamilton Law office

You can contract Kellie Hamilton Law Firm to join the Fairmont Timeshare class action (scroll down to the bottom).

http://kelliehamiltonlaw.com/

I tried calling Kellie Hamilton Law Firm and it says her mailbox is full. Then I went to her website and all her links were broken. I thought it as strange that a lawyer's office could be completely shut down like that. Who has talked to them or heard from them recently? I don't understand how they could close a class action suit.
 

condomama

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For Tacoma and others -
Form 67 -
http://www.ag.gov.bc.ca
scroll side tab - court services branch - other matters - supreme court - forms - civil - then you can do a search for Form 67 numerically.
 
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condomama

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Earlier in the week, Kelly Hamilton Law had a specific link to Fairmont on her home page.
She had included Mountainside in her list & I wrote to point out the error. This was the reply I received from her office, which obviously was not an answer directed at my email at all, but was interesting nevertheless -

"Re: Northwynd-
please be advised that my retainer is $400 payable to kelliehamiltonlaw.com law corporation.

Our main goal is to get an order from the Court that my clients should be able to walk away from the contract without any financial obligation.

Should you wish me to represent you, please send to my office before or by may 20, 2013 the followings:

1 the retainer

2 and copies of your contract and all letters you have received from Northwynd.

We can not guarantee an outcome. The court may and may not agree with us


Yours truly,

Kellie Hamilton, Lawyer


KellieHamiltonLaw.com

Law Corporation
Barrister & Solicitor
Nelson Square
1700 - 808 Nelson Street
Vancouver, BC Canada V6Z 2H2
Tel: 604-685-7111
Fax: 604-685-7103

mailto:kh@kelliehamiltonlaw.com

http://www.kelliehamiltonlaw.com
 
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AbeJ

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I also tried Hamilton and got no reply, full voicemail, and links gone. there is another lawyer Geldert named in this blog chain and I googled and emailed there and just got a reply and an offer to be represented.

further, upon review of Form 67, seems ok / straight forward enough, but I'm not sure I know or can find all the little bits of info required to complete it (petitioner(Northwynd?) name, petition #, petitions made, etc) ... does anyone have a completed Form 67 others can edit just their name and address info ? I don't know if either lawyer noted is really doing a class action counter-claim at this time, maybe, but for those not into paying lawyer fees (we likely might), a completed Form 67 with name and address replaced is likely doable by everyone. and whether the courts get one class anti-petition with 5000 names or 5000 single anti-petitions might amount to same thing ??

thanks all
 
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CindyD

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Form 67

I have downloaded the form 67 and I am unsure I would be able to fill it out correctly would be interested in a copy of a completed one
Thanks
 
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