Mega Owners at Club Wyndham Harbortown Point Default on Maintenance Fees

[stevenh21]

When they say "this year", do they mean for 2025? If so, it would seem to indicate that Wyndham had this planned as far back as 2024 when the fees were originally levied.

The maintenance fees were delinquent for 2025.

 

[Jan M.]

Jan, you make some good points in your reply. The resort is still listed as a Wyndham resort in the app. It has been common to see availability in both RCI and II. The resort does have 57 units. It also has regular delinquencies, and does accept units back from owners in good standing. I do think the 416 week units was not the total for the year, thus the letter was pointing out two major, unnamed owners. Maybe owners will get more information with the November billing for 2026. Lastly, at the end of my post, I stated that it was conjecture. One entity ( entities) were acting as a disruptor. I compared this to Wyndham's actions with other resorts. It is a fact that
Wyndham owns units. What is unknown to the public, are the names of the two major entities.

$367,800 ÷ 416 = $884.13 that sounds right for a year's maintenance fees per week.

 

[stevenh21]

Could this be another 11th hour surprise? A-la Pagosa?

This Wyndham Purge is the gift that keeps on giving.

The poor sales weasel that gets assigned to me Friday has no idea what's coming

This is not an 11th hour purge. The HOA is doing the budget for 2026 and deciding how much will come from owners and how much can come from reserves. The names of the two major delinquent owners have not been made public.

 

[dioxide45]

This is not an 11th hour purge. The HOA is doing the budget for 2026 and deciding how much will come from owners and how much can come from reserves. The names of the two major delinquent owners have not been made public.

If they start transferring money from reserves, I would say things are bad. That isn't a good long term plan. The HOA needs to take ownership of these deeds via foreclosure so they can start monetizing them again. If they don't, the future of the property is in jeopardy.

 

[stevenh21]

$367,800 ÷ 416 = $884.13 that sounds right for a year's maintenance fees per week.

You're good. We own one of the larger units which counts as a one BR. It has a hotel lockoff to the side of a studio. The maintenance fee for 2025 was $889. The studios are a little less

 

[dioxide45]

If these unit weeks are indeed Wyndham owned, it would seem that Wyndham doesn't control enough of the votes to control the association or the association BOD to have them file Chapter 11 like the other properties have.

While I agree that, on TUG, we sometimes advise people to just stop paying and go into default but we often first tell them to try giving their week away or finding someone willing to take it. In other words, we try to push them to "do the right thing" first. Did Wyndham first try to do this? Were they not able to sell these weeks to another entity? I suspect the weeks have $0 resale value? Did they just, simply, not pay? Did they try to work with the BOD/HOA first to come to a better solution?

 

[stevenh21]

If they start transferring money from reserves, I would say things are bad. That isn't a good long term plan. The HOA needs to take ownership of these deeds via foreclosure so they can start monetizing them again. If they don't, the future of the property is in jeopardy.

I agree. The board is conferring with their attorneys. The goal is to collect monies now and in the future. Harbortown's 50 year lease with the Ventura Harbor Authority expires in 2033.

 

[Roger830]

What's good for the goose.... An individual's financial decision to default is no different from this business/financial move Wyndham is making. It would make sense that Wyndham would want to keep what I/we think they're doing with Harbortown Point on the downlow as much as possible. They wouldn't want owners thinking if Wyndham can default then we can too. From what I've seen people, who I think know what they're talking about say, defaulting on a timeshare doesn't hurt a person's credit to the extent that some people fearmonger it does.

Many years ago someone here that had defaulted on a timeshare had discussed the mark on his credit with a banker who then told him that his understanding was that it was quite common. The member got his mortgage.

 

[bizaro86]

I agree. The board is conferring with their attorneys. The goal is to collect monies now and in the future. Harbortown's 50 year lease with the Ventura Harbor Authority expires in 2033.

That changes things quite a bit. Do you know what happens at the end of the lease?

 

[stevenh21]

With several people jumping on the Wyndham is bad bandwagon I decided to call Harbortown Point before lunch. I had to leave a message and thought it would be a long time to get back to me. I received a callback in about a minute. I had left in my message that they probably couldn't answer my question. The person calling told me that was correct. I replied, "can you tell me it's not Wyndham?" The reply was the owner had been with Harbortown at the beginning. I mentioned that Fairfield was there for the beginning, that Wyndham purchased Fairfield, and that Wyndham's name used to be on the entry sign a long time ago. This was all met with silence. I did learn that this unnamed entity owns 400 week units and another owns 25 delinquent units. I can't say it is Wyndham, but I won't correct you for doing so.
I hope the board and attorneys are able to work this out with a positive result for the resort.

 

[stevenh21]

That changes things quite a bit. Do you know what happens at the end of the lease?

I asked a similar question when we stayed at Harbortown a month ago. The board is discussing this and if they made an offer to the Port Authority, It would have to go out for public bids. So they want to hold off till closer to the end of lease. I assume the Port Authority will put it out for proposals automatically. If the resort is in worse financial condition, it will be more difficult to get a lease renewal.

 

[randyz]

With several people jumping on the Wyndham is bad bandwagon I decided to call Harbortown Point before lunch. I had to leave a message and thought it would be a long time to get back to me. I received a callback in about a minute. I had left in my message that they probably couldn't answer my question. The person calling told me that was correct. I replied, "can you tell me it's not Wyndham?" The reply was the owner had been with Harbortown at the beginning. I mentioned that Fairfield was there for the beginning, that Wyndham purchased Fairfield, and that Wyndham's name used to be on the entry sign a long time ago. This was all met with silence. I did learn that this unnamed entity owns 400 week units and another owns 25 delinquent units. I can't say it is Wyndham, but I won't correct you for doing so.
I hope the board and attorneys are able to work this out with a positive result for the resort.

Agreeing with the Wyndham is bad bandwagon as being potentially misguided. My original deed is from Avenue Plaza Resort in 1997 which was developed by the Kosmas Group. Typical weeks ownership for the time and traded in II. In the early years I received some communication regarding non II exchange opportunities including Ventura. Fairfield bought out Kosmas around 2000. And somewhere in that time period Fairfield ended up with a small number of units at Harbortown point. To my recollection Harbortown point predated Fairfield involvement and Fairfield/Wyndham does not go back to the beginning. AI search suggests Harbortown Point goes back to the 1980's. In any case I have been not been able to get an exchange there in 25 years access is so limited. I always assumed it was dominated by weeks owners.

Maybe someone else can recall how Fairfield ended up with units at Harbortown Point. Fairfield first took over Kosmas in 2000, and then Equivest in 2002. There was some sort of relationship between Kosmas and Equivest, enough so that there was litigation between the two parties in the early 2000's. Not sure how Harbortown Point potentially fits into this mess but all seems to happen around the same time period.

 

[randyz]

I am going to correct myself. The openAI search had suggested Fairfield bought Kosmas Group. I searched through my files further and found the documentation that Equivest bought Kosmas Group in 1999 and took over Avenue Plaza among other resorts. Fairfield in turn acquired Equivest in 2001-2002. Interestingly, Bentley Brook and Newport resorts were part of Equivest which are on the Wyndham chopping block as documented in the ongoing thread in this forum.

Harbortown Point HOA begins in the 1980's. Fairfield Communities Inc is recorded as acquiring deeds in the development in 1999. So Fairfield/Wyndham was not there from the beginning.

Speculating, if the units in question that are defaulting on maintenance fees go back to the 1980's that is over 40 years ago. The original owners may no longer be alive and an estate is failing to pay. In any case this is likely a local ownership/HOA issue nothing specific to Wyndham.

 

[Jan M.]

Agreeing with the Wyndham is bad bandwagon as being potentially misguided.

Wyndham made a business decision that was in the company's best interests. This had to have been more than a year in the planning prior to enacting it. It makes sense from a financial standpoint to do this en masse with the company and law firm being paid to handle the everything for all the resorts rather than spreading it out over a period of several years and doing it piecemeal. What they're doing doesn't make the company bad from a business standpoint.

From the owner standpoint, a large number of owners aren't happy about losing so many resorts and/or certain resorts in particular. Which is completely understandable. It's no exaggeration to say a move of this scope is unprecedented and came as a shock. It's rocked the boat for the owners and made many of them question Wyndham's finances, their reliability, etc. The reality is that we don't like change when it comes to our vacations and it's a normal reaction to want to blame Wyndham. When it's a logic vs emotion thing, it's difficult for emotion to see the logic.

How could owners not mourn this as the passing of an era thing? However I do see this as a better to rip off the band-aid and get it over with situation.

 

[Floridaman76]

I just did an update at Ocean Walk this morning, it was one of the older video presentations that highlighted the older resorts and had a couple minutes on how Fairfield got started, how you can still book at Fairfield Bay, showed several shots of resorts that are closing. Lots of dots on the map going away. I asked the presenter about the resorts closing and he didn't know about it and changed the subject quickly.

The pitch was 60k for 200,000 access points. Pass. Got our gifts and left. Hard push to buy for whatever their replaceent for extra holidays is called. "can sell vacations to fund your entire ownership". Showed a cherry picked December Park City booking as "proof" saying you can rent for $4000/night.

 

[rickandcindy23]

This is not an 11th hour purge. The HOA is doing the budget for 2026 and deciding how much will come from owners and how much can come from reserves. The names of the two major delinquent owners have not been made public.

You can check county records maybe? Is Wyndham listed as an owner?

 

[jwalk03]

I just did an update at Ocean Walk this morning, it was one of the older video presentations that highlighted the older resorts and had a couple minutes on how Fairfield got started, how you can still book at Fairfield Bay, showed several shots of resorts that are closing. Lots of dots on the map going away. I asked the presenter about the resorts closing and he didn't know about it and changed the subject quickly.

The pitch was 60k for 200,000 access points. Pass. Got our gifts and left. Hard push to buy for whatever their replaceent for extra holidays is called. "can sell vacations to fund your entire ownership". Showed a cherry picked December Park City booking as "proof" saying you can rent for $4000/night.

$4000 per night?! Yeah right, sure you can, LOL

 

[dioxide45]

You can check county records maybe? Is Wyndham listed as an owner?

I did a quick check of Ventura County recordings and only saw a smattering of recordings seem to show either Wyndham or CWA. I didn't see any that had PVTO which I understand is the association that is associated with CWA.

 

[paxsarah]

I did a quick check of Ventura County recordings and only saw a smattering of recordings seem to show either Wyndham or CWA. I didn't see any that had PVTO which I understand is the association that is associated with CWA.

Try Fidelity National Title Insurance. That's the entity where some of my Certified Exit contracts were transferred to.

 

[FL Guy]

I just did an update at Ocean Walk this morning, it was one of the older video presentations that highlighted the older resorts and had a couple minutes on how Fairfield got started, how you can still book at Fairfield Bay, showed several shots of resorts that are closing. Lots of dots on the map going away. I asked the presenter about the resorts closing and he didn't know about it and changed the subject quickly.

The pitch was 60k for 200,000 access points. Pass. Got our gifts and left. Hard push to buy for whatever their replaceent for extra holidays is called. "can sell vacations to fund your entire ownership". Showed a cherry picked December Park City booking as "proof" saying you can rent for $4000/night.

I did one at Ocean Walk this past Monday morning. Got a hard sell to combine my 2 deeded and 2 CWA contracts into one CWA contract, plus buying 184k points to take me to Gold VIP, (without my PIC Plus contract), for $47k. It also came with the hard sell that they would rent out my excess points or me every year to "more than pay for my total annual maintenance fees". I passed. I told them that having them rent out the points for me for more than enough to pay my maintenance fees every year just seemed too good to be true. They assured me it wasn't, but of course, "no guarantees". Oh, and they also said they would be able to assure me that I would be able to exit my ownership at any point in the future. They also assured me they would be able to transfer all of my ownership, including the PIC Plus contract, to a niece or nephew at any point in the future. I told them I understood it could only transfer to spouses and children, but they said they would be able to "make it happen". (I'm skeptical of that too.)

 

[stevenh21]

I am going to correct myself. The openAI search had suggested Fairfield bought Kosmas Group. I searched through my files further and found the documentation that Equivest bought Kosmas Group in 1999 and took over Avenue Plaza among other resorts. Fairfield in turn acquired Equivest in 2001-2002. Interestingly, Bentley Brook and Newport resorts were part of Equivest which are on the Wyndham chopping block as documented in the ongoing thread in this forum.

Harbortown Point HOA begins in the 1980's. Fairfield Communities Inc is recorded as acquiring deeds in the development in 1999. So Fairfield/Wyndham was not there from the beginning.

Speculating, if the units in question that are defaulting on maintenance fees go back to the 1980's that is over 40 years ago. The original owners may no longer be alive and an estate is failing to pay. In any case this is likely a local ownership/HOA issue nothing specific to Wyndham.

Read post 35. One entity owns 400 delinquent week units and another owns 25. Read between the lines in that post. The 400 unit group is probably owned by Wyndham.

 

[dioxide45]

Try Fidelity National Title Insurance. That's the entity where some of my Certified Exit contracts were transferred to.

Nothin

 

[paxsarah]

Nothin

Worth a shot.

 

[stevenh21]

I did a quick check of Ventura County recordings and only saw a smattering of recordings seem to show either Wyndham or CWA. I didn't see any that had PVTO which I understand is the association that is associated with CWA.

Did you try "Fairfield"?

 

[Floridaman76]

Did you try "Fairfield"?

Or Cedant, or Cendant (or something like that), the company who was originally the parent company of Worldmark.