Maintenance fee increase

[slames]

I have a Wyndham Mauna Loa property that has raised the maintenance fees by 50% for the coming year...is this legal? I've never seen more than perhaps 10% at a time. Any ideas? Can something be done?
thanks.

Slames

 

[Pat H]

Wyndham must be on a roll. My Patriot's Place, Williamsburg went up 25%. It's now $772 for a 2 bdr white week. Ridiculous!! Anyone want it?

 

[Timeshare Von]

I have a Wyndham Mauna Loa property that has raised the maintenance fees by 50% for the coming year...is this legal? I've never seen more than perhaps 10% at a time. Any ideas? Can something be done?
thanks.

Slames

Often resorts artificially keeps MFs down so that they can sell units. Once they are sold out or close to sold out, and the property owners association is turned over from the developer, the reality is that without the developer subsidy, they have to increase the MFs.

I don't know what legal recourse you may have . . . I doubt that you have any. If I were you, however, I would learn all I can about how the fee was established and get more involved in understanding the management side of the resort.

 

[Timeshare Von]

Wyndham must be on a roll. My Patriot's Place, Williamsburg went up 25%. It's now $772 for a 2 bdr white week. Ridiculous!! Anyone want it?

Wyndham has little to do with it. Thank your POA and board. My guess is they thought owners over there would be happy to see the three year assessment end and since you're already comfy with the high fees these past three years, that a 25% increase might be slipped by.

I don't understand why your fees on a 2BR would be so high though. Our 3BR fixed week at Kingsgate isn't that much!

 

[timeos2]

Maybe, maybe not

I have a Wyndham Mauna Loa property that has raised the maintenance fees by 50% for the coming year...is this legal? I've never seen more than perhaps 10% at a time. Any ideas? Can something be done?
thanks.

Slames

Many States have legal limits on the percentage increase allowed in any given year. But it usually applies only to operations, not taxes OR reserves. Depending on how they got to a 50% increase and what the laws are in that state they may or may not be legally raising the fees. You'd have to do some research to figure that out.

 

[teepeeca]

More questions/thoughts about the MLV. Since it hasn't been in active sales for many years, I thought that it was a "sold-out" resort, so the developer shouldn't have had the opportunity to keep mx fees artificially low (to sell the units).

When Wyndham took over the management from TPI, I'm wondering if they "packed-the-board" (HOA) with "their" people??? That way, they can do "just about anything they want to do"---which includes raising mx fees (NOT to help the resort, but to give extra $$$ to the company).

Look at some of the other Wyndham resorts (Kauai, in particular). When they took over, IMMEDIATELY the mx fees were raised, with almost nothing being done to improve the resort.

Tony

 

[Timeshare Von]

Good point Tee as admittedly I'm not familiar with the resort in question . . . and was only citing one reason why some folks see significant jumps in MF's out of the blue.

 

[DaveNV]

I'd be curious to know more about the bill you received. I own a 1br at Mauna Loa Village, and my MF from 2008 to 2009 went from $724 to $853. As I calculate that, it's about a 17% increase. How do you get to 50%?

Dave

 

[legalls]

I own a one bedroom EOY at Mauna Loa Village and my fees this year were $459.79. This is almost a $100.00 increase from last year.

Rick

 

[craftemp]

Fairfield Bay

Just received notice - fees here are going up 14.5%
That's a LOT for one year!!

 

[rickandcindy23]

Fairfield Bay is going up that much? OH MY GOSH!

 

[Sandy VDH]

Also a lot of aging older resorts are now realizing that there reserves are vastly underfunded and are having to increase MFs to boster reserves are updated are required soon and there are insufficient funds to do so.

Some HOA do a better job with reserves. Other manage by having regular special assessments to deal with the shortage of funds.

My Hilton properties have pretty high MFs, but they are always very well maintained and as far as I know have never had a special assessment.

Now Wyndham has a bunch of older resorts that need more upkeep and upgrading. Wyndham has also acquired and taken over management of many resorts that may have had HOAs that wanted to just keeps MFs down and underfunded reserves as a result. Upgrades all have $$$ associated with it.

 

[ajdon]

I received my notice of a 14% increase from either Fairfield Bay or Pats place, I forgot which one. I'm wondering when it'll get to the point of calling the resort and just renting will be cheaper....:annoyed:

 

[lprstn]

Well Wyndham is not the only place going up on MF's. My Sheraton Vistana increased by about $132 after me paying over $1500 in assessments. I am seriously going to sell that one come next year... maybe..

 

[roadtriper]

Wyndham news the past couple of days
"Stock value down 75%" "estimated 2009 sales down .8 Billion from 2008 numbers" "Wyndham lays off 4000 employees (12% of the workforce)"

probably not a coincidence that maint fees are skyrocketing ? RT

 

[Timeshare Von]

Just received my 09 Kingsgate for our fixed week 3BR lockoff. MF's went up $112 from $655 to $767. If this was in points, it would be worth 203k in FSP.

 

[bnoble]

Yikes. I felt a little bad about the 10% increase at Peppertree @ Tamarack. Perhaps I should consider myself lucky...

 

[timeos2]

Just received my 09 Kingsgate for our fixed week 3BR lockoff. MF's went up $112 from $655 to $767. If this was in points, it would be worth 203k in FSP.

Wow. How do they assign the maintenance fees on the fixed weeks? We did not see an increase like that on our FSP UDI fee for 2009 based at Kingsgate.

 

[Timeshare Von]

Well let me start out my explanation with a minor correction. Now that I've read the letter with the MF invoice, I note that the $112 increase INCLUDES a voluntary donation to ARDA. Needless to say, I won't be voluntarily paying them ANYthing . . . so the real increase was $109.

Basically the budget is prepared as an "overall" revenue and expense projection on a line by line basis and then broken out by unit size also by line items.

The "C" units (3BR) are thankfully not equal to the sum of the 1BR and 2BR so there is an economy of scale that benefits those who own deeded 3BR lockoff units.

The 1BR MF's are $393 and 2BR are $528 . . . and the 3BR are $764. All of these exclude the $3 to ARDA nonsense.

As you know, we're coming off a three year assessment at Kingsgate. I remember when I bought this unit resale back in 2002 the 03 MF's were something like $495, so they have skyrocketed over the past several years. I still feel that I'm getting a decent value for my MF's given that I get two weeks of vacationing/exchanging for the $764.

Side note to the budget, there are some mitigating reasons for the increase in MF's sited in the accompanying letter:

*Bad debt allocation to cover owners who don't pay their MF's
*Recovery of last year's deficit
*Renovation & Refurbishment - to complete the Phase III which I don't get if we paid our SA's that should have sufficed!!
*Increase in property taxes (LOL - which were minimal on a per unit basis)
*Funding the reserves (for my unit $110 towards to 'roads & parking lot' reserves and $43 for 'roof maintenance and replacement').

I don't know why your MF's as a points owner wouldn't reflect the same basic formulas since your points represent a fixed week that was the original unit of sales at this resort, right? (In other words, aren't all UDI/FSP at Kingsgate tied back to converted fixed weeks?)

Hope that helps. I would love to understand why continued fixed weeks owners may have received a disproportionate increase.

 

[glandiu]

Question for Timeshare Von, Since you own a 3BD lockout at Kingsgate...I am currently looking at a 3BD lockout week at Kingsgate (Summer Week). You say it trades fairly well? Is that through RCI or the Wyndham Points? If it's with Wyndham Points, did you convert it yourself or purchased that way? If you converted, how much did it cost to convert? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Timeshare Von]

Question for Timeshare Von, Since you own a 3BD lockout at Kingsgate...I am currently looking at a 3BD lockout week at Kingsgate (Summer Week). You say it trades fairly well? Is that through RCI or the Wyndham Points? If it's with Wyndham Points, did you convert it yourself or purchased that way? If you converted, how much did it cost to convert? Thanks in advance for your help.

My 3BR l/o at Kingsgate is week 18 (first week of May). It is still a fixed week and we use it and trade it as two separate weeks . . . the 1BR and the 2BR sides. When trading, it is part of RCI and as a fixed week trades in weeks not RCI points.

We are not interested in converting this week of ownership into FSP points and have fought them at every turn of the way

If we were to convert, the 3BR lockoff unit is worth 203k points and would cost us $2,395 if done alone and $199 if done with the purchase of another FSP points contract. Neither of these are likely to happen in our lifetime.

Hope this helps - - feel free to write me personally if you have other questions and would like to take them off list.

Von

p.s. I forgot to answer the question about how these two weeks trade. Yes, they trade very well and they are able to obtain the identically same trades using either the 1BR or the 2BR unit. One nice thing is that they do obtain the "internal exchange" preference with other Wyndham resorts which is nice too.

 

[Timeshare Von]

Follow-up On Kingsgate Trading Power

I really love that with RCI, it apparently gets internal preference in terms of trading power. Using my 08 1BR side (wk 18), I got a 2BR for Mauna Loa Village in Kona for April 10. I have been successful in getting the nice Hawaiian exchanges that others are getting using their FSP points in 28k and 56k assignments.

I still have my 2009 1BR and 2BR to use in RCI, one of which I'm still hoping to land something on Kauai or Maui for Sept 09 to piggyback to the week we own on Waikiki.

 

[Timeshare Von]

Wow. How do they assign the maintenance fees on the fixed weeks? We did not see an increase like that on our FSP UDI fee for 2009 based at Kingsgate.

From the MF chart over on the Wyndham Forum:

2008

MF/SA
3.78/1.78 KINGSGATE
447/232 KINGSGATE - A UNIT
333/171 KINGSGATE - B UNIT
655/338 KINGSGATE - C UNIT

2009

4.39 KINGSGATE
528.40 KINGSGATE - A UNIT
393.06 KINGSGATE - B UNIT
763.51 KINGSGATE - C UNIT

 

[Timeshare Von]

My 3BR l/o at Kingsgate is week 18 (first week of May). It is still a fixed week and we use it and trade it as two separate weeks . . . the 1BR and the 2BR sides. When trading, it is part of RCI and as a fixed week trades in weeks not RCI points.

We are not interested in converting this week of ownership into FSP points and have fought them at every turn of the way

If we were to convert, the 3BR lockoff unit is worth 203k points and would cost us $2,395 if done alone and $199 if done with the purchase of another FSP points contract. Neither of these are likely to happen in our lifetime.

Hope this helps - - feel free to write me personally if you have other questions and would like to take them off list.

Von

p.s. I forgot to answer the question about how these two weeks trade. Yes, they trade very well and they are able to obtain the identically same trades using either the 1BR or the 2BR unit. One nice thing is that they do obtain the "internal exchange" preference with other Wyndham resorts which is nice too.

Not to mention, my MF's on those 203k points would be $892 vs the fixed week rate of $764, so why would I want to pay that extra money just for the opportunity to use the ownership in points rather than two fixed weeks?

 

[FLDVCFamily]

Not to mention, my MF's on those 203k points would be $892 vs the fixed week rate of $764, so why would I want to pay that extra money just for the opportunity to use the ownership in points rather than two fixed weeks?

It depends on how you want to use the week/points I guess. I just bought a 203K point resale contract at Kingsgate, and the FSPs work better for our situation. We plain to use it for several long weekends at Bonnet Creek rather than for 2 one-week trades. I know that we'll have to pay some extra HK fees by doing this, but overall this works for us.

Why are the MF's slightly higher on the 203K points than they are on the fixed week, though? Just curious!