Thanks for the very detailed response!
At this point, if it were me, I would wait for them to actually file the lawsuit. At that point it is all in the open as well as their demand for damages.
At that point, I would hire a lawyer to answer the suit and make them put up or shut up.
Unfortunately, it seems like all of the timeshare lawyers seem like scammers. That's how my parents ended up in this mess. They were looking for a lawyer and found one online that had a lot of good reviews. Turns out they were fake reviews. Reputable lawyers we know in real life don't want to touch timeshares with a 20 foot pole.
I would take the bet that they are fishing for a default judgment and that they will fold if they have to go to court and present a case.
I have previously done this with debt collectors and of four, one I negotiated 50 cents on the dollar over a year, the other three folded like a cheap suite (pun intended). I was working for a company where I purchased prepaid legal representation and it turned out to be such a deal.
I'm a little confused. Wouldn't we have to wait until the judgment before we can negotiate with the debt collector? In terms of HICV, my parents tried to pay them back in full plus the $1200 to get out of this thing earlier in the year and they wouldn't give them any written documentation of the deal. They don't seem to want to even take our money at this point.
You have a bit of a hurdle as the HOA is the OC (Original Creditor) so their records will probably be accepted by the court, but given that it is HICV, I don't see why you are not being pursued by Orange Lake Corporate. That's where a lawyer would earn their money to have them prove the plaintiff's standing.
I'm not sure. It has the HICV logo and is signed "Respectfully, HICV". So it seems like it's them. But, based on my research, the lawyer in that HOA works directly for HICV and is involved in every Orange Lake HOA as some kind of officer. Not sure what they're trying to pull with that one.
If you'd like me to send you the letter I received privately so you can check it out, I will definitely do that.
If it were my parents that hired a "sketchy" timeshare exit lawyer, I could see this as an attempt to get a "second bite of the apple".
It definitely wouldn't surprise me.
They are going to have to foreclose and there will be some fees associated with that, but until they can enumerate their damages you are dealing with a nothing burger.
They did provide them with an amount owed (about $4500 at this point), but it seems like they're going to delay this as much as possible to get the maximum amount out of them.
Once the property IS foreclosed, you can demand an accounting of the costs associated with the foreclosure. If they drug their feet over time to let maintenance fees and penalties accrue before foreclosing, an argument can be made to ask why they did not mitigate their damages when they were notified of the intent to default.
You then say that your parents live in a different state than Florida, so they would have to file in the county where your parents reside. Then they would have to have them served.
They definitely drug their feet. My parents haven't paid since January 2021.
How would I go about demanding accounting costs and communicating with them in general? Am I able to do it myself? I'm completely locked out of any discussions right now. The resort won't talk to me at all since I'm not on the deed.
I would love to do this through an attorney, but I can't find a legitimate one who is willing to take on a timeshare case.
At that point it is a debt collection issue, not a Timeshare, and you can find an aggressive debt collection defense shark in their county/state.
I would love that very much!
Here are some proactive things you can do:
[*]See if you can locate the county clerk in the location of the Timeshare. If it is a Weeks Interval, it should be recorded there, If it is a Land Trust, it still should be recorded.
[*]If it is not recorded, then you can probably determine the date of foreclosure, if it's there, you can watch for the removal.
Their names are no longer recorded there (they were previously recorded when I checked last about 6 months ago). How would I go about determining the date of foreclosure in this case?
[*]I would then check if this "HOA" is actually a debt collection firm that buys foreclosure data from Orange Lake in bulk as bad debt for less than pennies on the dollar.
[*]If that is the case, they are not the OC and only hope to recover any money is through a default judgment
[*]These debt collection firms can hire a local lawyer to file suit in the hopes of obtaining a default judgment when the victim ignores the summons.
The HOA is called "Orange Lake Country Club Villas Condominium Association II, Inc.". It does seem to be listed on their site. I'm guessing it's an actual HOA (though, as I stated above, the members consist of a lawyer and a pawnbroker so I'm not sure I'd call this legitimate).
[*]Keep monitoring the civil court clerk in you parents county of residence to make sure a suit is not filed and they try a slimy tactic like alternative service.
Just checked. Thanks for the suggestion! There's nothing there so far.
Do this until the statute of limitation expires. Check with a lawyer on this, it could be when they were put on notice of intent to default or when they payment was missed.
Okay thanks! I'll try to figure out that date.
Thanks again for all of your help! Your advice has definitely surpassed any expectations I had when creating my post!
