Bluegreen dropping our association

[rapmarks]

As a property owner at Christmas Mountain, I have been a member of two Bluegreen owner's associations. We own two lots with the ROA, the original homeowners association, sold to us by RDI and inheritied by Bluegreen when they bought out RDI. We own a lot in the christmas mountain golf estates, developed and sold by Bluegreen a few years ago. We pay fees to Bluegreen to use the facilities and they notifiy us of meetings and send us bills, etc. They have reduced the benefits each year that were part of the original package. I just received my bill for maintenance fee from the ROA, but to my surprise, they are dropping the Christmas Mountain Golf Estates as of June 1. Apparently, we will still pay a fee to Bluegreen, but the association must collect it and send it in themselves and go after those in arrears themselves. Bluegreen has always attended all the meetings, even small informal meetings. The board says it is Bluegreen's decision, and it is a surprise to me, and I bet there will be a lot of comments at our yearly meeting. (our fee for CMGE is almost $400 yearly).
I know this doesn't affect most of you, but I find it interesting and a bit perplexing, as they do get quite a bit of income from the subdivisions and a hugh amount of support for the restaurant and golf course from the residents. I am also surprised that they are dropping just one association and not the other one, and the one they are dropping is the one they developed.

 

[CharlesS]

Lot vs. condo vs. timeshare

Interesting. I have had a BG salesman try to talk me into trading in my BG points for a lot in one of their developments so the topic is of interest to me.

Do I assume correctly that your "lot" is somewhat comparable to a normal "condo" in that you have 52 week possession (you own all of it)?

I can see two different roles for BG. One, to provide the real services such as snowplowing, golfing, pool, etc. The other would be to administer the estates. It might be that the original contract requires BG to forever provide the services. But the administration role might be at the HOA's (ROA's) and BG's option. BG might have found out that the cost of administrating was higher than the administrative fees they could charge. So they are only dropping part of it. (I know at some of the resorts in which BG does not control all of the inventory BG manages some and does not manage others. It's up to the HOA to decide.)

In any event, check your paper work and keep us posted on what happens and what you find out.

Charles

 

[rapmarks]

No, they provide no services at all. We must use the Christmas mountain sanitary district, which (don't be grossed out), only processes liquids, that is $30 a month, and does not handle solid waste (and does not include water). The sanitary district bills us separately.
They do not plow the roads, the Estates section has to hire their own snowplowing , etc. Bluegreen did not make sure the township would take over the roads in the Estates when they built, so the road maintenance is on the owners.
Also, Bluegreen was charging an accounting fee of $3000 to the association to handle the billing for the fee to Bluegreen. If they went after anyone who was in arrears, all the fees were charged to the association. The fee to Bluegreen is to cover use of the pools, golf is at a fee, restaurant is public.

Everyone owns their own lot and home outright, and the township assessor has actually told people "you are the rich ones at Christmas Mountain". Our lots are assessed higher than neighboring property, and lots not on the golf course are assessed as high as or higher than golf course lots
But if you sell your home, you have to pay $150 to Bluegreen to let them know there is new ownership. .
The original section is on public roads and the township plows them and maintains them. Some of the people in the original section are on the christmas Mountain Cable system and pay $25 a month for that.

Something strange is that Bluegreen has always refused to give the homeowners associations a list of owners. They say they are respecting privacy. Our association officers went to the tax rolls to get a list of owners.
we do like it here and don't have to be involved with the resort at all if we didn't wish to. We used to have a lot more amenities that sort of compensated for the crowdedness during season. I think some of the other Bluegreen developments are just housing communities and not involved in timeshare resorts.