As an owner are you happy with your purchase? We're looking at adding to our portfolio (Hyatt) and we're not familiar with Festiva.
I own at Palm Beach, and I am happy so far, but I have not yet used my week. I am booked for August 2021. I booked at the beginning of January, 2021, when my deed was transferred and registered with festiva. There was a lot of availability for summer, so that made me happy, but August worked better for me this year.
There was a lot of damage to the property. They have not opened yet, and are pushing for April. Looks like it will be done by then, per the last update. Maintenance fees for 2021 did not include special assessments, and was about the same amount from 2020, but not sure if something is coming for 2022. Insurance has covered and approved a lot of the work. The units will be fully refurbished. Colors, material used will make these better than before, by looking at the renders.
The Palm Beach at Orange Beach property has an interesting history. This resort did not start as timeshare, it started as a condominium and many units were sold 100% as apartments. There are still many owners. Something happened that escapes acquired the property and started selling as timeshares. Some units sold as fixed units at the very beginning. Then they started converting some owners fixed weeks to escapes weeks (ETC - their vacation club), as well as all unsold units. ETC could only be removed from these deeds by amendment, and ETC carried over when sold resale. So, these converted weeks have to be part of the club.
Something might have happened at some point that they stared bulk removing ETC on some owner's deed, maybe they offered a club opt out at some point?
In 2013, Escapes bulk removed the ETC to their remain unsold deeds by amendment.
After that, Festiva acquired and became the new developer.
So I was able to put this together by looking at court documents and deeds, but I still don't know about units sold, or currently being sold by Festiva.
I remember reading, and asking owners, about deeds with added escapes club fees, others without, and deeds that were fixed and some that float in the system. I still do not completely know or how these are implemented today. I know that some Escapes to Stonebridge in MO owners are able to trade into Palm Beach using the scapes vacation club, so those deeds are still out there. I can also confirm that my unit, which is a fixed week with no ETC, has no ETC fee attached and festiva is letting me use it in their system to choose any available week. A Festiva owner also confirmed to me that his fixed November unit is able to trade in the summer, so I am not sure if festiva has different seasons for this resort, but if there are, there might not be a lot of implementation... It is a little bit of a mess, with lots of information, but make sure you research what you are buying to future proof your investment.
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