New email on Royal Mayan Termination

[urban5]

Just received this email from the Royal Resorts:

Your membership company has commissioned Survey & Ballot Systems (SBS) to conduct a voting process regarding the termination of The Royal Mayan membership program that will be sent to you in the next few days. In order to conduct the process in an independent manner you will be receiving the voting instructions via email from this trusted third party company inviting you to take part in the voting process.

SBS is a company headquartered in Eden Prairie, MN, which has specialized in election services including traditional paper ballot elections, online voting, telephone voting and hybrid voting systems since 1990.

Please look out for the following email address: noreply@directvote.net.

If you have firewall protection on your computer we recommend that you add the address to your address book so that the email is not moved automatically to your junk mail folder.

We value your participation and we would like to thank you in advance for your cooperation.


It will be interesting seeing what the vote will be on.

 

[pjrose]

Somewhere I read that they were going to redo the previous survey to include all RM owners and to be more clear. Not sure if I read this on the Royals' web site or Royals Owners.....

 

[sdbrier]

Interesting, since I've owned there for many years and have yet to receive any of these surveys. Whenever I check on my email, they have the correct one on file. Weird!

 

[Phydeaux]

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it peculiar that Royal Mayan members were just notified that we will be voting on the outcome of the sale of the Royal Mayan – this within days of being told the Royal Resorts are going AI?

Hmmmm....

Could it be that there was a need to ensure the vote was indeed in favor for the sale of the Mayan as opposed to turning it over, aka VCI, only to be burned again? I’ve heard that vote didn’t match members true intentions. And what about trying to sell even more timeshares in this economy?

How are sales at the Royal Hacienda? Flat, aren’t they? I understand there still isn't an advisory council there because they haven't achieved enough sales.



How's that Grand Residence coming along?

 

[johnsontrio]

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it peculiar that Royal Mayan members were just notified that we will be voting on the outcome of the sale of the Royal Mayan – this within days of being told the Royal Resorts are going AI?

Hmmmm....

Could it be that there was a need to ensure the vote was indeed in favor for the sale of the Mayan as opposed to turning it over, aka VCI, only to be burned again? I’ve heard that vote didn’t match members true intentions. And what about trying to sell even more timeshares in this economy?

How are sales at the Royal Hacienda? Flat, aren’t they? I understand there still isn't an advisory council there because they haven't achieved enough sales.




How's that Grand Residence coming along?

I thought the number I was told was around 80% regarding the total weeks sold at RH. I know two years ago we were told we could switch our summer weeks (24, 25) for winter weeks at no cost. They had no summer inventory to sell and I guess people tend to buy the same time of year they are visiting. The year before we wanted to add a lock-off only to one of our weeks and there was only 1 available and that happened because those folks upgraded to a full villa the week we were there.

 

[BoaterMike]

I thought the number I was told was around 80% regarding the total weeks sold at RH.

A little rounding up maybe? Well, we know that it's not the "magical" 90% as they have not assembled an advisory council as of last Fall.

Mike

 

[geoffb]

Could it be that there was a need to ensure the vote was indeed in favor for the sale of the Mayan as opposed to turning it over, aka VCI, only to be burned again? I’ve heard that vote didn’t match members true intentions.

I have been told that the surveys indicated that 75% of VCI members said they would renew if they could but closer to 25% actually did. They have sold around 25% more I think. Many of the people there during week 10 and 11 were coming in on internet specials for odd numbers of days so there were non-members arriving and checking out every day.

We used to own at the Mayan so I was asking about that out of curiosity and mainly heard another survey was going to be done, it sounded like the last one they plan to do.

My sense, which is just my opinion really, is that the survey will have to indicate a very high number of members are considering renewal (higher than the 75% at VCI) before the developer will take the risk.

-G

 

[gmdds1]

Royal Mayan Owners...get ready to be shafted!

THIS ISN'T AS SURVEY...IT'S A VOTE

I just did this owners "survey" online. It was a vote vs. a survey. I copied it before I cast my vote, just in case I couldn't get back in to see the info later, and indeed, after I cast my vote, I couldn't get back in. If anyone wants it, let me know....I made a hard copy!

The bottom line is this, they want you to vote for either:

1) Do you, the owner, want it sold as the contract says, then the funds distributed?
They made it very clear that you would PROBABLY only get 25% to 40% of your residual value, due to the terrible economy and resale values in Mexico. They also seem to be adding in all kinds of additional fees that would have to be paid out first, before any residuals (Mexican workers severance pay, etc., etc.)

2) Do you want to keep it for 15 more years? This would cost you $100 for a new contract and then you would pay whatever the maintenance fee would be for those additional 15 years. You would receive nothing at the end.
This is definately what they are aiming for as the residuals will disappear under this scenario. They said they would need 90% of the owners to vote for this before it would happen. It was very clear that it would be one or the other for all of us....not one way for some and the other for others.


I have the following concerns/questions/opinions:

1) Doesn't every owner have a contract that both sides entered into and now, at the end, they want to change the contract? That doesn't seem legal or fair to me. (It doesn't matter if 99.9% of the owners want it changed.....I want my contract to be upheld!)

2) If they wanted to try and re-sell the Mayan again, I would have been interested, given the offer....but now, if they choose to continue down this course, I would not/will not own at the Royals again (this after owning approximately nine Royals through the years).

3) The more they try to get out of paying the CONTRACTED FOR Residuals....the more this whole Royal system is no more than a glorified Ponzi Scheme.


I hope common sense prevails at the Royals.......I have enjoyed my time there for the past 20+ years and hate to see them "piss" away their good reputation for the sake of the almighty dollar (or poor planning on their part).

 

[Phydeaux]

3) The more they try to get out of paying the CONTRACTED FOR Residuals....the more this whole Royal system is no more than a glorified Ponzi Scheme.

What is your understanding of the "contracted for residuals"? That is, what is that amount? What exactly are you asking for? Have you read your members agreement? Just asking.

 

[dmorea]

Just received this in my Tug inbox, ..... Any thoughts?

Personally I think the place for major discussion if there is to be one, is on

http://royalresortowners.ning.com/


Hi, I am writing you regarding the termination of the Royal Mayan membership you do own. You should have already received an email from ISCO/Survey & Ballot Systems (SBS), they are conducting a voting process to determinate what will be they doing once the mebership expires, they are asking us to vote between extend 15 more years (having to pay the yearly maint fee of course and then no more residual rights), or to pay back around 20-40% of the residual value back. Of course they know must of the owners wont accept to extend the mebership for nother 15 years, so they want us to choose the 20-40% of the residual value option. I strongly believe that neither of the 2 options are okay for us. We are the real owners of the Resort and we have the power to change things according on what would be the best for us. As for me, I guess I just wont vote. I would like to create a database with the information of all of the owners (name, week & unit number), so we can all discuss about it and make ISCO understand things are not as they want, but as we the owners want. I am offering myself to recopilate the information requested and to start discussing about this. If you do know another Royal Mayan owner, please forward this email PLease get back to me including this message, so I can know which unit do you own, and to have your email to start soon a discusion... Luis 2012/04/01
DELETE

 

[X-ring]

We are the real owners of the Resort and we have the power to change things according on what would be the best for us.

Really ???

I thought all we 'owned' was the right to use the Royal Mayan Beach Club's facilities during the intervals we purchased until memberships end in January 2014.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

There have been some pointed comments posted in this thread, but unless I overlooked it, no one so far has posted anything that references the purchase agreement and shows how what is being proposed violates something in the purchase agreement.

It just seems to me that that is what it comes down to - whether what was agreed upon in the sale is being violated. Because if it doesn't violate the what was in the purchase agreement, I don't think there's a real substantial basis for complaint.

 

[ilene13]

Just received this in my Tug inbox, ..... Any thoughts?

Personally I think the place for major discussion if there is to be one, is on

http://royalresortowners.ning.com/

DELETE

There is a discussion on the owners site!!

 

[X-ring]

There have been some pointed comments posted in this thread, but unless I overlooked it, no one so far has posted anything that references the purchase agreement and shows how what is being proposed violates something in the purchase agreement.

It just seems to me that that is what it comes down to - whether what was agreed upon in the sale is being violated. Because if it doesn't violate the what was in the purchase agreement, I don't think there's a real substantial basis for complaint.

I agree, exactly the points I was making - the following posts relate

http://tugbbs.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1270438&postcount=4

http://tugbbs.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1266785&postcount=76

 

[pjrose]

Can a RM owner please post the exact language in the membership agreement?

I don't have the RM agreement.....but the RC and RI state that at the end of the period the property will be sold for the highest price, and the members will get (whatever is stipulated....RC uses residuals, RI doesn't) minus expenses such as taxes, selling fees, and so forth. (This is NOT a quote.)

Can someone with a RM agreement copy down the exact language pertaining to 1) that it will be sold and 2) what the return is, minus what?

Thank you.

 

[X-ring]

I don't have the RM agreement.....but the RC and RI state that at the end of the period the property will be sold for the highest price, and the members will get (whatever is stipulated....RC uses residuals, RI doesn't) minus expenses such as taxes, selling fees, and so forth. (This is NOT a quote.)

Can someone with a RM agreement copy down the exact language pertaining to 1) that it will be sold and 2) what the return is, minus what?

Thank you.

MEMBER'S PRIORITY IN RESIDUAL RIGHTS

SIXTH: The company declares that following expiration of the Trust in January in the year 2014 the Club will be sold (in an orderly fashion, at public or private sale) for the best price obtainable and any sales proceeds remaining after first deducting taxes, commissions and other appropriate charges and expenses, will be distributed in accordance with the priorities set forth below:

- First: Club members of record on the date of termination of the Trust shall be paid their residual rights as specified in Addendum 1 referred to in Clause Seventeenth hereof.

- Second: The Company shall be paid an amount equal to the total amount paid out under priority First above.

- Third: One hall of any remaining net sales proceeds shall be paid pro rata among the persons receiving funds under priority First above and the other one half shall be paid to the Company.

[Note: clause 17 and Addendum 1 don't add/modify any of this except to specify the amount in the particular contract.]

 

[pjrose]

Thanks, X-ring.

ok, so it says "will be sold," same as the RC agreement. From that I infer that an extension of some kind would need to be structured as some kind of private sale, for example a private sale from whatever the current company is called to another company, then reissuing new Membership Agreements.

And as stated before (and I think everyone recognizes this) the residual rights are paid from "any sales proceeds remaining after first deducting taxes, commissions and other appropriate charges and expenses," hence the amount was never guaranteed.

Do you see anywhere in the agreement something about changing any terms of the Membership Agreement given xx% agreement with same?

(This is likely all moot, given that as Ellis pointed out, they want a 90% agreement for extending, but it's unlikely that a full 90% will even respond (and possible that the company owns 10%+/- from defaults and so forth), and non-responses will be votes to sell.)

 

[pjrose]

Really ???

I thought all we 'owned' was the right to use the Royal Mayan Beach Club's facilities during the intervals we purchased until memberships end in January 2014.

Exactly. It's an RTU.

. . .
3) The more they try to get out of paying the CONTRACTED FOR Residuals....the more this whole Royal system is no more than a glorified Ponzi Scheme.

. . .

The "Contracted for residuals" were never guaranteed to be the original full amount.

 

[Ellis2ca]

It is a Right To Use (RTU) WITH RESIDUAL VALUE

Originally Posted by X-ring

>I thought all we 'owned' was the right to use the Royal Mayan Beach Club's facilities during the intervals we purchased until memberships end in January 2014.

Exactly. It's an RTU.

It is NOT just a Right To Use... It is a Right To Use WITH RESIDUAL VALUE, if your contract says it has residual value.

X-ring, READ YOUR CONTRACT.

If your contract does NOT have residual value, then you bought a resale and somebody else stayed with the residual value that belonged to your contract and sold you the Right to Use, alone. Your right to use will end n 2013, and you have nothing to gripe about or to worry about. Your contract ends in 2013. Cheers.

But those of us who bought WITH residual rights, we OWN residual rights.

That means that when the 30 years are over, the resort theoretically would be sold, and what is left will be paid out FIRST to the members according to the residual rights that is on the contract, THEN an equal amount to the developers, and IF THERE IS STILL MONEY LEFT IN THE POT, it will be divided equally between members and developers.

For those of us who have a contract that has residual value, we OWN the residual value after the resort is sold, and we own it BEFORE the developers get their share.

This straw vote that is supposedly occurring right now is not mentioned anywhere in the contract, so it is not legally valid as a way to determine the future of the Royal Mayan.

Even if the "majority" votes one way or the other, what has legal value is what is written in the contract. That is: the resort will be sold. If it is re-sold as a timeshare, I am satisfied that the contract is honored.

In the meantime, I think the SALES DEPARTMENT or SOMEBODY QUITE STUPID is giving ALL the Royal Resorts a BLACK EYE. All this buzz happening here and in other forums is going to make it more difficult for them to sell whatever is left of Royal Haciendas and Vacation Clubs, and also at Royal Mayan.

Whoever came up with this idea should be fired for handling it this way.

This whole "vote" thing is not legally binding, and I am certain they know it.

At Vacation Clubs, they made a "survey" to see what were our intentions, and they say the actual result was not what the market research team thought would happen.

But they call this "a vote" and then they slant the wording so that we vote that we are ready and happy to give up our residual rights. But we are NOT ready and happy to give up our residual rights, so that is not going to happen.

So why are they doing it?

The two options stated in the so-called ballot are not the only two options that exist. They didn't mention re-selling the resort as a timeshare, which is precisely what they did with Vacation Clubs, to the total satisfaction of everybody, and to the great merit of the Royal Resorts.

So I don't know what is happening but whoever is at the front of this should be dismissed and replaced. - Ellis

 

[pjrose]

. . .
This whole "vote" thing is not legally binding, and I am certain they know it.

. . .

Good point. They HAVE TO sell it - public or private - for the best obtainable price. Private would, I assume, mean they form a new company to re-buy it and then that new company/owner COULD do whatever it wanted with the property.....

But in any case, the sale requires distributing the proceeds after commissions etc. An extension is not [or certainly does not appear to be] possible under the existing Membership Agreement.

I can see how they could do it quite legally and not violate the existing Agreement.....but I'm not going to write it down here. I'm sure they've already figured it out.......

 

[mthomtech]

Well, I got screwed on the Royal Mayan, it looks like. We bought below residual a few years ago (but apparently not far enough below residual). For me, the best option financially is to vote to extend and hope that by some miracle 90% vote for it. It's worth about 3 times as much by my estimated calculations to get another 15 years, versus 25-40% of the residual.

I knew that the residuals were not guaranteed, but was hoping they'd be able to honor them (I'm guessing they were about as clueless as we were that we'd be right in the middle of the worst housing crisis and economies of our lifetime). This is really going to hurt sales for them going forward ... although when you do the math residuals are pretty negligible when you are buying a 30-50 year right to use (in net present value).

Looks like the only winner here were the ones that sold us their unit a few years ago

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Originally Posted by X-ring

>I thought all we 'owned' was the right to use the Royal Mayan Beach Club's facilities during the intervals we purchased until memberships end in January 2014.

Exactly. It's an RTU.

The "Contracted for residuals" were never guaranteed to be the original full amount.

It is NOT just a Right To Use... It is a Right To Use WITH RESIDUAL VALUE, if your contract says it has residual value.

Ellis - of course you own the residual rights as well. No one is arguing otherwise.

X-Ring was very clearly and obviously responding to a poster who said the members owned the resort.

Owners who bought a unit expecting the full residual to be paid took a risk that is pretty much on par with buying a stock expecting that the price will rise. It didn't. Too bad. That's life.

And I'm not putting you in that camp. It's been clear for years that you know exactly what the situation is with the residuals. I'm referring to those who might thing there was some guarantee or assurance that the full residual would be paid and now seem upset that it might not be.

 

[X-ring]

Looks like the only winner here were the ones that sold us their unit a few years ago

At least they're not now coming back for the sole purpose of rubbing salt into the wound.

 

[mthomtech]

At least they're not now coming back for the sole purpose of rubbing salt into the wound.

Very true!

Well, chalk it up to experience. Even though the chances are slim, I hope there's a chance to get to 90% for extensions ... worth it if you can rent for even half the going rate today. Of course, I have an easy to rent week, others may not.

Bad decision to buy the Mayan with only a few years left, but we still enjoyed our stays. Bought resale at the Sands (and based my decision on a $0 residual ... 39 years out, the residuals don't really matter much anyway). Still feel good about that decision.

How hard is it going to be to for Royal to sell units now ... it doesn't look good for their reputation ... but I'm sure they need the $40M to get started on the Grand Residences ... not really much of a choice for them in this economy.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

How hard is it going to be to for Royal to sell units now ... it doesn't look good for their reputation

Considering the shady shenanigans to outright mendacity that define most of the Mexico timeshare market, I can't see where this will make a whit of difference. The fact that there aren't outright defrauding people still leaves them as one of the best operators in the market.