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Iztapa-Pacifica Timshare Special Assessment

cloud3

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MF & Special Assessments [Mexico] [ merged]

I want to canvass TUG to get some feedback regarding the legitimacy of a special assessment from a right-to-use timeshare resort. The resort is located in Mexico but my question is whether or not a resort that does not have any fee simple owners can legitimately request a special assessment from its members? I have paid special assessments in the case of a timeshare that I owned outright but never for a right-to-use timeshare.

There is nothing in my purchase contract about special assessments although there is a fairly standard clause about obeying the Rules and Regulations of the resort. I did find a booklet of Regulations (altho I don't think it came with the purchase contract) that has a clause related to a "Extraordinary Maintenance Fee". It refers to "fortuitous cases or any other natural phenomena that put in risk the conservation of the Facility". However, in this case the extra charge is not associated with any disaster but rather just a shortage of funds for the "renovation and refurbishment of units and the common areas" to quote from the letter describing the special assessment.

The resort takes in about US$20 million revenue from maintenance fees and rentals and claims to have spent almost US$6 million on maintenance in the last 5 years (way beyond industry standards, they claim). The special assessment requested is 60% of the annual maintenance fee so it is not an insignificant amount.

This Resort does not publish a budget or report to members on it's expenditures so there are no financial records to determine if this extraordinary fee is justified or not. 60% seems high to me - what are other's experiences? Is a legal contest worthwhile considering this is Mexico? Does anyone else have any experience with special assessments like this? Thanks for any and all advice. :confused:
 
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cloud3

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Maintenance Fee Increases [Mexico]

I am looking for a timeshare industry web site that could tell me more about maintenance fees. Specifically, I am interested in what is the average % increase in the fee from year to year. The actual dollar amount is not of much interest because I realize it will vary significantly depending on the resort.

Hopefully someone out there know where I could find this information. Thanks
 

DeniseM

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There is no average increase. The BOD at each resort, in conjunction with the management company, determines the MF increase each year. I have timeshares that have not increased at all for a few years, and one of my timeshares has a 25% increase this year! :eek:
 

vckempson

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There is no average increase. :

I know what you mean but that's not accurate. With a sampling of numbers there is always an average (mean) and a midway point (median). Just because we don't know what it is doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Once you start to look at the sampling, you'd then create a bell curve and exclude the outliers to see what the range is within one or two standard deviations on each side of the average. 75% of all the results will fall within 2 standard deviations and 94% within 4 standard deviations.

Now for the OP's question. I don't know that those type of statistics are kept by anyone. The budgets are all public knowledge... sort of. It's certainly available to the owners but not necessarily available to anyone and everyone.
 
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Ridewithme38

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I think i had done that math at one point...awhile ago, JUST for the Wyndham system and over 5yrs it average 7.6% or something like that...

IF you just want to check one system is real easy as most forums like this keep copies of previous years MFs...Odds are you can go 5yrs back in the Starwood System just from information here
 

cloud3

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Thanks people but I thought I might be too optimistic with this question. We own at a "right-to-use" resort in Mexico so the financial budgets and expenses are not known to the members. The fees have increased by about 80% over the last 10 years. But they seem to be growing faster of late and there is talk of a special assessment.
 

DeniseM

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Thanks people but I thought I might be too optimistic with this question. We own at a "right-to-use" resort in Mexico so the financial budgets and expenses are not known to the members. The fees have increased by about 80% over the last 10 years. But they seem to be growing faster of late and there is talk of a special assessment.

In Mexico, you do not have the protection of US Law, so literally anything could happen, and there is very little you can do about it.

That being said, the MF at my Maui resort has also doubled (100% increase) in 10 years - it happens.
 
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Ridewithme38

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In Mexico, you do not have the protection of US Law, so literally anything could happen, and there is very little you can do about it.

That being said, the MF at my Maui resort has also doubled (100% increase) in 10 years - it happens.

What protection do we have in the US against MF increases?
 

DeniseM

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Passepartout

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If you are talking about the Pacifica in Ixtapa I just received a Special Assessment letter and I'm looking for other owners to fight this.
Gary Brewer
Gawacky@aol.com

What was said, Gary, was that as opposed to in Mexico, where the owners for the most part are in RTU's controlled by the developers. In the USA, most TS's are deeded weeks, controlled by owner BOD/HOA's and/or management companies. This doesn't keep developers from loading their own people onto BODs at least early on, but does give owners come say in the increase and use of MFs. In Mexico, there is neither proper accounting nor control over MFs or SAs.

Lotsa luck on fighting something that you don't control.

Jim
 

pjrose

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I know what you mean but that's not accurate. With a sampling of numbers there is always an average (mean) and a midway point (median). Just because we don't know what it is doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Once you start to look at the sampling, you'd then create a bell curve and exclude the outliers to see what the range is within one or two standard deviations on each side of the average. 75% of all the results will fall within 2 standard deviations and 94% within 4 standard deviations.

Now for the OP's question. I don't know that those type of statistics are kept by anyone. The budgets are all public knowledge... sort of. It's certainly available to the owners but not necessarily available to anyone and everyone.

You are of course correct on the mean and median.

However, the distribution is what it is - maybe it's bimodal or trimodal or skewed! It would be odd to create a bell curve if one doesn't exist in the first place, especially if you want to find out about the actual data.

Your percents apply to ANY distribution (skewed, flat, bimodal, normal, etc), using Chebyshev's Theorem, which states that AT LEAST 75% will fall within +/- 2 SDs of the mean, AT LEAST 89% within +/- 3 SDs, AT LEAST 94% bewithin +/- 4 SDs.

However, for a normal distribution (which this probably isn't), you can be more precise, and you WILL have 68% within +/- 1 SD, 95% within +/- 2, and 99% within +/- 3.

So.....if you do find data, keep the distribution the way it is - don't try to squish it into a normal curve if it isn't. If you want to throw out outliers, fine, or keep them and use the median (and skip the SD) instead of the mean.

(Yeah, I know I'm sounding kind of obnoxious, but I can't resist.....I have a PH.D. in and teach this stuff :hi: )
 

easyrider

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One thing I forgot to consider when I bought my resale TS contracts are the MF increase. While they haven't gone crazy they have still went up. The management of these TS's n Mexico have done a decent job, imo, as they managed quite a bit of renovation without a special assessment.
 

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I've got an RTU contract in MX (Grupo), and my m/f increases have been consistent with the wording in the '99 contract: 3% on average.
But I also pay a 'Renovation Fee' once every 5 years which is equal to that 5th year's m/f.

Heck, I don't think I can complain, what with all the huge m/f increases and special assessments I've seen others have had to pay in the last several years.
 

bjones9942

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I'm currently enrolled in a statistics class ... seems I just can't escape stats, no matter where I go!!!

My MF's went up 1% last year and 1.6% this year. No special assessments as of yet. My RTU expires in 2022, so even if my MF's jump up a bit I'm still in good shape until the end.
 
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flowerpower

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We are currently members of Pafica since 2000 in a Master Sands Unit. We are charged a annual maintenence fee around $1200.00 for 2012, which we paid early to receive a 20% discount. We visited Pacifica Dec 2011 and arrived home to a letter/invoice stating we owe a "renovation fee/special assessment fee" due to the resort because the amt of owners that have dropped or given back their contracts In otherwords, they did not pay their bills! My questions is, why are we, as current paid Master Sands members, being charged this sum of money approx $800.00? Is it to pay for those who decided to just "walk away?" Is this fair? Can the Board of Directors do this? I'm wondering if there really is a board of directors? Can they just change the rules, and make new rules and make up new rules anytime?
Does anyone having any feedback on this? Ever heard of this happening before?
Oh, yes, I forgot. All money's are due no later than March 30. 2012
 

aliikai2

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The sad facts are that these resorts are run by the Developer

for the Developer's benefit and you are the ones that pay for their lavish lifestyle.
In most of the Mexican resorts there is no Board, no BOD, just the owner( Developer) and you as a member have no rights and no say in how things are run,

fwiw,

Greg
We are currently members of Pafica since 2000 in a Master Sands Unit. We are charged a annual maintenence fee around $1200.00 for 2012, which we paid early to receive a 20% discount. We visited Pacifica Dec 2011 and arrived home to a letter/invoice stating we owe a "renovation fee/special assessment fee" due to the resort because the amt of owners that have dropped or given back their contracts In otherwords, they did not pay their bills! My questions is, why are we, as current paid Master Sands members, being charged this sum of money approx $800.00? Is it to pay for those who decided to just "walk away?" Is this fair? Can the Board of Directors do this? I'm wondering if there really is a board of directors? Can they just change the rules, and make new rules and make up new rules anytime?
Does anyone having any feedback on this? Ever heard of this happening before?
Oh, yes, I forgot. All money's are due no later than March 30. 2012
 

Passepartout

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pjrose

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Stats

I'm currently enrolled in a statistics class ... seems I just can't escape stats, no matter where I go!!!

ha ha ha!

Feel free to email me if you get lost or on anything in the class :)
(don't PM - my PM box is full...)
 

pittle

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I've got an RTU contract in MX (Grupo), and my m/f increases have been consistent with the wording in the '99 contract: 3% on average.
But I also pay a 'Renovation Fee' once every 5 years which is equal to that 5th year's m/f.

Heck, I don't think I can complain, what with all the huge m/f increases and special assessments I've seen others have had to pay in the last several years.

I totally agree - but must admit that we also own weeks with Grupo Mayan that were purchased in '99. These 2-bedroom weeks are less than other 2-bedroom weeks that we own.
 

MuranoJo

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Pittle,
I also got the impression that newer contracts may not be as low in allowed m/f increases--is that what you meant?

And if you get a decent week, split the lockoff & deposit to RCI, the cost-per-TPU analysis can be very good. :)
 

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Pacifica Assessment

I'm wondering if you have sent a letter to Pacifica, either to the address in Colorado or directly to their Mexico City office.

We also received the assessment. What was not clear in their e-mail message was what would happen to an owner who failed to pay the assessment. I assume that this would fall under the termination clause in the original agreement.

The original agreement does not mention the word assessment but they generally referred to "expenses", and I assume from that that the owners have the right to issue this assessment.

It certainly would be nice to get a group together of Pacifica owners in order to get a meeting with the owner.
 

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Pacifica Ixtapa "Special Assessment"

We also received the "Special Assessment" letter when returning from Pacifica December 17, 2011. We have 2 contracts, Senior Sands Princess Winter Season (of course, the "Princess" no longer exists because they only built 2 of the promised 17 units.) We also have a Senior Sands one bedroom unit in the Gold Season.
No where in either of our contracts is "special assessment" mentioned. I really want to know if ALL members received this assessment, and what will happen if we refuse to pay.
How I wish I had spent some of my time on the beach collecting email addresses!!!
We have not decided our course of action. Having paid my 2012 fees in 2010, I am FURIOUS that they dare to try this.
 

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pacifica ixtapa special assessment

Have you found out if the "Special Assessment" is legal?
Do you know if the non-American/Canadian members were also assessed?
 

aliikai2

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The sad facts are that these resorts are run by the Developer

And as such they will decide what they need from you to make it profitable for them to operate. They can raise the annual levy, have a special assessment, just because they want to make extra money this year.
There have been many posts about what is right or what is average, but those have no bearing on a developer.

Greg
 
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