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DRI and the former Gold Key Resorts in Virginia Beach including Ocean Beach Club

Egret1986

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How many folks take more than a glance at the upcoming/current year's annual budget when receiving it with the new maintenance fee?

I am one of those, which I believe is typical of the average timeshare owner, that rarely gives the budget more than a glance.

Yesterday, a fellow Tugger and former Gold Key Resorts timeshare owner (now an involuntary DRI owner) contacted me and asked me to look at the budgets from 2014-2017 to see if I saw anything out of the ordinary.

I looked at each year's budget, Revenues and Expenses.

DRI acquired the GKR's Virginia Beach and Kitty Hawk resorts in October 2015. It's been a very frustrating time for both me and the other Tugger. Lengthy transfers, maintenance fees not being credited during transfer, reservations in place being cancelled, being charged daily amenity fees as an owner using one's deeded week because it's in RCI Points, errors in information provided, mistakes made on adding guests to reservations, etc. are just some of the issues we've experienced.

Maintenance fees on track to increase 10% each year is also very frustrating. The frustration increased ten-fold yesterday while reviewing the 2017 budget. In the years 2014-2016, transitioning from GKR to DRI budgets, other than the increases; everything seemed laid out similarly.

However, the 2017 budget, on review, left me incredulous. The other Tugger didn't tell me per se what to look for because he wanted to see if it "jumped out at me." Well, it did and in a big way. Good gosh!

The budget was previously broken down by Revenues, Operating Expenses and Other Expenses. However, on the 2017 budget, a new Expense was added in addition to the other three, "Payroll and Related Expenses". DRI has doubled what was once a single set of expenses (Operating Expenses) for things like Admin, Front Desk, Maintenance, Housekeeping, Porters/Bell Desk, Pool and Security; and added a second set of expenses for PAYROLL for these same items.

This adds $4,618,740 to the 2017 budget. These costs are being added in twice.

Is this typical DRI?

Ex. 2016 budgeted housekeeping was $1,511031. For 2017, housekeeping is $1,393,804 + $1,325,529, which is typical for each line item for Operating Expenses + Payroll Expenses.

Can they really get away with this? Am I missing something here? So DRI can double expense owners on Operating Expenses? If they were going to break Payroll out of the Operating Expenses, wouldn't you think Operating Expenses would have decreased? I would.

Again, is this typical DRI? If so, do DRI owners really go along with this? Or is it a case of them getting away with it because owners just don't pay attention to what's in the budget?

$4,618,740 is a whole lotta padding! No way should things like Admin, Housekeeping, Front Desk, etc. double from one year to the next.
 

nuwermj

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