Does anyone else believe Holiday Inn Club Vacations is ripping off its Timeshare Owners?

[saleya]

Hello All,

I have been a happy Timeshare owner since 2003. I bought into South Beach Resort in Myrtle Beach, SC a 1 bedroom unit based on RCI points. At the time the resort was owned by Burrows & Chapin. The maintenance fees started were $450 the first year and the benefits were great: free golf tickets at a number of golf clubs in Myrtle Beach, as well as free tickets to attractions in town: mini golf, Ripley's museums, etc. Along came Holiday Inn a number of years ago, purchasing the property from Burrows & Chapin. All the freebies were eliminated in one fell swoop, and the maintenance fees were drastically jacked up.

What annoys me even more is that they have the nerve to ask for a RESERVE assessment (on top of an operating assessment), in addition to a $5 "Voluntary Contribution". The latter to check if the user is asleep at the wheel or something??

Does anyone else feel they are ripping us off? To give you an example, I just received my bill with a due date of 1/1/2022:

2022 Operating Assessment ------------> $695.59
2022 Reserve Assessment ---------------> $186.41
Property tax ------------------------------> $24.94
Voluntary Contribution ------------------> $5.00

Grand total: ------------------------------> $911.94

This is an increase of more than 100% since I bought the timeshare. They have been charging this reserve assessment since they took over. You would think that this is money to be used in case there is a shortfall of funds in administering these properties. This argument doesn't hold water since they are charging this reserve EVERY year, in an ever increasing amount. One would think they have good years and bad years. On a good year they wouldn't have to ask for a reserve assessment since the previous year fees are enough to cover this year's. Right? They actually have the nerve to write in the associated letter that there was a fund surplus from 2020, and yet, they are asking more $ than ever (see attached).
It doesn't seem at this point that we, timeshare owners, have any recourse against predatory practices by the likes of Holiday Inn.

Can anyone here relate to my experience?

Your time and help is appreciated

Valentin

 

[DeniseM]

A maintenaance fee that doubles in 20 years is pretty standard.

 

[Ty1on]

100% increase over 18 years seems pretty par for the course to me.

The Reserve assessment is intended to prevent them from hitting you with an enormous special assessment when there is a disaster or the property needs a major refurb. That reserve assessment looks high as a percent of maintenance fees, you would need to look at historical reserve assessments. They may have under-reserved in the past, or they may have had extreme expenditures out of their reserve fund to warrant the need for a rapid re-funding.

A contractual percentage of HOA expenses actually gets paid to the management company (that's built into the Operating Assessment). The rest of your fees go either to real costs of operation or to the reserve fund. Besides the management fee, none of what you are paying lines HICV's pockets.

I also want to address the free tickets, etc.....I see a lot of people complaining that a management company that takes over management of a resort removes benefits. In very many of these cases, the reason for the takeover is that the prior manager is driving the resort into bankruptcy with bad financial policies like offering more benefits than the owners are paying for. Those benefits are very often removed for the survival of the resort.

 

[Janann]

I'm not a Holiday Inn owner, but the following still applies:

How do you know the reserve is too high? What is the current balance in the resort's reserve fund? When was the roof last replaced? How about the furniture, the swimming pool deck, or the parking lot surface? These are all things that are covered by the reserve fund. Its hard to know if the reserve is too high without knowing the balance of the reserve, AND the expected need for major capital upkeep (replacement of roof, furniture, pool, parking lot, etc.).

 

[davidvel]

Hello All,

I have been a happy Timeshare owner since 2003. I bought into South Beach Resort in Myrtle Beach, SC a 1 bedroom unit based on RCI points. At the time the resort was owned by Burrows & Chapin. The maintenance fees started were $450 the first year and the benefits were great: free golf tickets at a number of golf clubs in Myrtle Beach, as well as free tickets to attractions in town: mini golf, Ripley's museums, etc. Along came Holiday Inn a number of years ago, purchasing the property from Burrows & Chapin. All the freebies were eliminated in one fell swoop, and the maintenance fees were drastically jacked up.

What annoys me even more is that they have the nerve to ask for a RESERVE assessment (on top of an operating assessment), in addition to a $5 "Voluntary Contribution". The latter to check if the user is asleep at the wheel or something??

Does anyone else feel they are ripping us off? To give you an example, I just received my bill with a due date of 1/1/2022:

2022 Operating Assessment ------------> $695.59
2022 Reserve Assessment ---------------> $186.41
Property tax ------------------------------> $24.94
Voluntary Contribution ------------------> $5.00

Grand total: ------------------------------> $911.94

This is an increase of more than 100% since I bought the timeshare. They have been charging this reserve assessment since they took over. You would think that this is money to be used in case there is a shortfall of funds in administering these properties. This argument doesn't hold water since they are charging this reserve EVERY year, in an ever increasing amount. One would think they have good years and bad years. On a good year they wouldn't have to ask for a reserve assessment since the previous year fees are enough to cover this year's. Right? They actually have the nerve to write in the associated letter that there was a fund surplus from 2020, and yet, they are asking more $ than ever (see attached).
It doesn't seem at this point that we, timeshare owners, have any recourse against predatory practices by the likes of Holiday Inn.

Can anyone here relate to my experience?

Your time and help is appreciated

Valentin

You don't say when HI took over, but it certainly sounds like the old management company was underfunding reserves, based upon the numbers presented. You should get a budget every year showing the income and expenses.

And yes, the "voluntary" ARDA contribution is fluff if not a rip off, so don't pay it.

 

[silentg]

We own a week at Orange Lake, we find the maintenance fee to be high but we never pay the voluntary fee. We also belong to the Holiday Inn Club. We use points to stay at other Holiday Inn Resorts and IHG hotels too.
We own other timeshares with lower maintenance fees, but they are not the same level as HICV. They are independent resorts that we acquired thru TUG and are happy to stay or trade them through RCI.
I feel we get our monies worth with our timeshares. ‘Tis the season for maintenance bills to come. I prefer Christmas cards but, that’s how it goes, with maintenance fees.

 

[tschwa2]

Reserves are based on long term expenses, not yearly expenses. So they take things like new roofs on the buildings, and refurbing the balconies, and replacing the kitchen appliances, etc and an actuary figures out the life expectancy of those items so each year the reserves might include 1/20th of the estimated cost to replace the roofs, and 1/15 of the expense to resurface the pool and 1/10 of the cost to replace the kitchen appliances and 1/6 of the costs to replace the living room furniture, 1/12 of the boiler/air conditioner replacements etc. That way on the year that the roofs are replaced you don't pay $900,000 extra and the year when the tvs, and sofas and rugs are replaced you aren't covering $120,000. The normal MF's are for fees that occur every year, like cable and internet, cleaning supplies, staff wages, staff benefits packages, insurance, management fees, starter packets, etc. If you don't plan on the regular replacement and long term maintanance and break it down and fund it annually and just wait until the refrigerators all break or the patio furniture falls apart and needs to be replaced asap, you will have wildly different MF's from year to year and you will probably pay more to get things fixed when they broke rather than replacing them before the end of their useful predicted life.

 

[Herbalwise]

HICV bought our resort at Ridge Tahoe (they now call it Tahoe Ridge) 2&1/2 years ago. I joined a group of owners fighting them to keep the quality there. What I've come to learn is that the previous managers neglected so much maintenance and upkeep that what was the 5 star resort we've known and loved, while it is still very nice, is now considered a "distressed" property. Perhaps your old owners have neglected your property too. I'd go over your reserve study with a fine toothed comb to see if things have been neglected so your resort doesn't decline like ours did. HICV now has a BIG job restoring the resort. Good news is the location. It's always amazing there (just got back from a week there)!

 

[Mongoose]

In my experience the seem to do a better than average job with MF. Much better than some (Diamond), but more than others (Worldmark).