Orange Lake Maintenance Fees Increased?

scooooter · Nov 17, 2008

We are currently at Orange Lake - it's absolutely beautiful here! My sister in law just called cause she got her maintenace bill from Orange Lake and said there was an increase of like $50ish on it. I remember that we had an increase, (maybe last year or the year before) to cover the upgrade they did in the units in the west. Is there now an increase for this year to cover the club house/west pool upgrades? I do remember we got something in the mail and did indeed vote, but I honestly can't remember what we voted for, LOL!

We've only been owners since 2008, so I couldn't advise her on how often the maint fees increase. Is there someone on here who can give me an idea of how much the maint fees have increased over the past few years?

She was wondering if the increase was not to cover the fact that the economy is pretty bad, and that people may not be buying as they were before, due to either lack of money, or due to the fact that the banks are so much tighter now than they were in the past. They are new owners and are wondering if this is something that can be expected each year, or how does this work?

Any comments would be helpful! Thank you! :hi:

Rhonda

riverdees05 · Nov 17, 2008

It seems to increase each year, just like most of the other timeshares.

golfman · Nov 17, 2008

New 2009 West Village maintenance fees

I just got the bill for our West Village unit. 2008 fees were $667.43 and the new 2009 fees are $702.13. This is an increse of $34.70(5.2%) which is pretty much in line with the past years.

scooooter · Nov 17, 2008

Wow. That seems like a big increase to me, especially if it can happen every year??

She said that her real estate taxes actually did not increase, they were the same (or she might have said they went down, actually, I can't remember.). But, she said the increase was only for the MAINTENANCE portion of the bill. If that is the case, that's like a 10% increase, isn't it, (for maintenance)? I don't know, that just seems surprising to me. I'm new at this, though, so maybe it's just that I'm not too well informed on maintenance fees. $50/year just seems like a big increase to me.

I appreciate everyone's insight on this, thank you for taking the time to respond!

Rhona

gjw007 · Nov 18, 2008

A 5% increase is roughly normal. My Diamond maintenance fee went up much more than that. Cost increase each year. Think of the cost of heating the pools, air conditioning, etc. and the way that energy costs had exploded earlier this year. Other costs also increase so these expenses get passed on to the owners. $34 a year increase in maintenance fees doesn't sound outrageous especially given some of the increases in expenses earlier due to energy costs. Also, OLCC has among the lowest maintenance fees in Orlando.

As a comparison, I'm going to use DVC mostly because I have easy access to the history of the maintenance fees and thus can determine the cost of the maintenance fees each year. You can find the history of dues at http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=21793879&postcount=3. I'm also going to make a couple assumptions here but a change in these will result in the numbers changing. The point that I'm trying to make though will remain the same.

First assumption, you will be using a 2-bedroom unit.
Second assumption, you will be traveling not during the most busy season of the year and also not during the least busy season of the year.
Third assumption, you will reserve the unit for a week.
Fourth assumption, you have exactly the number of points needed for your stay and don't have any excess points.

DVC's Old Key West requires the fewest amount of points of the DVC units, so I will use that as the resort to determine point requirement. Its points values can be found at http://www.wdwinfo.com/disney-vacation-club/OKW-Points.shtml. Disney has 5 defined seasons, I will use the Dream Season which is the moderate demand season (season from least amount of points required to most are: Adventure, Choice, Dream, Magic, and Premier). The Dream season includes May and early June (among other times) which is a time that I go to WDW. The requirement for a week at Old Key West for a 2-bedroom unit is 263 points.

The maintenance fees for 2008 for this unit is 263 points times 4.56 or $1199.28.
The maintenance fees for 2007 were 263 points times $4.40 or $1157.20

The percentage of increase using the change in maintenance fees per point for OKV has been.
2008: 4.56/4.40 = 3.64%
2007: 4.40/4.24 = 3.77%
2006: 4.24/3.86 = 9.84%
2005: 3.86/3.68 = 4.89%
2004: 3.68/3.49 = 5.44%

As can be seen by using DVC, maintenance fees don't change by the same amount each year but average in the 4 to 5% range for the most part. The cost of the maintenance fees for DVC are higher than for OLCC but if you do any exchanging (internal to DVC), you don't have the annual expense of an exchange company ($99 or $89 depending on points or weeks) or the cost of exchanging ($99 or $164 depending on whether points or weeks). For those of us who have annual passes, it is not an issue but staying on Disney property you also don't have to pay the $11 per day parking fee at parks. I don't wish to get into a comparison of DVC versus OLCC but given the disparity in maintenance fees (roughly $700 for OLCC and roughly $1200 for DVC for a Dream week at OKW), it seems necessary to at least address why there is a difference.

The point of all this was to show that maintenance fees do increase yearly, they don't increase at the same rate each year, and that they seem to average in the 4 to 5% range for the most part. I believe there is a 15% limit on the amount of increase that you maintenance fees can have.

scooooter · Nov 18, 2008

Gary, thank you for your input! I always appreciate it.

I hear what you are saying on the average of a 4% to 5% increase, but here's the question I have. If the real estate taxes are not changing, or actually go down slightly, and the maintenace fees are, say, $600, and the increase is $60, that - to me anyways - is actually a 10% increase on maintenance. I guess I'm looking at it differently than you are. You are saying the "overall" increase is an average of 4% to 5%, and yes, i would agree with that. I'm saying that the actual increase this year at OLCC is all in the maintenance, so that makes it a 10% increase. That seems excessive to me.

Could this be also due to the high oil/gas prices? I'm just looking for an explanation on what would cause the maintenance fee portion to increase by 10%.

Thanks in advane for your help!

Rhonda

gjw007 · Nov 18, 2008

Rhonda,

If the real estate tax portion remains the same, then the increase is due to the other factors. Have you looked at the breakdown of expenses to see where the changes were? I have not so I can't make any comment regarding where the additional fees come from. But everything is rising in price; wages, utilities, telephone, etc., so the increase in maintenance fees should be expected. I would agree that 10% yearly seems excessive but without taking a closer look, I can't really make much more of a comment. Oh, the example for DVC didn't include property tax and you can see where OKW had an almost 10% increase in maintenance fees one year.

scooooter · Nov 18, 2008

Oh, I did have one other question while we are on this subject. I remember we had that $50 fee that we all paid for the upgrades on the units a year or so ago. Was this a one time fee, or was this an increase we would be paying annually? I can't remember, but I thought it was a 1 time payment?

And, does anyone know when they are finally going to finish upgrading the west units? For the last 2 years that we've come down, they've told us my brothers unit was upgraded and it still hasn't been. I was here 2 months ago and was told when I checked in that it had been upgraded. It hadn't. I just checked in this past weekend, and was told again that it had been upgraded - it hasn't been. I called the front desk, they double checked and apologized, it indeed has not been upgraded. LOL!

I'm laughing because they were told it would be completely upgraded before November of 2007 and here we are in Nov 2008 and it's still not done. It's unit 2499 on Sandhill, I think is the name of the road.

Thanks so much!Rhonda

scooooter · Nov 18, 2008

Gary, just noticed your response, sorry!

I just sent her an email asking her to tell me exactly where she sees the increases & will post it on here. Since we are at OLCC right now, I don' have my bill with me, nor have I seen it yet. But, will post her feedback once I hear from her.

Rhonda

scooooter · Nov 18, 2008

Hmmm....well, she's able to compare last year's bill to this year's bill because they bought last nov and they just got a total amount for maint and a total amount for the taxes.

Is there anyone out there who has a 2 bedroom river island unit that can tell me where, specifically, the increase is from last year to this year? I am just curious more than anything.

Thank you!
Rhonda

gjw007 · Nov 18, 2008

I don't have the maintenance fees with me so I'll have to check. I don't recall anything about a $50 charge last year; I'm wondering if this is for the West Village only. I remodeled my house so I have a ton of things still in boxes but I did find a maintenance fee for 2006 which was $625. Unfortunately, I don't have the 2007 bill so I can't see what the difference was between 2006, 2007, and 2008. My units are in River Island.

The maintenance bill didn't provide a breakdown of costs but there has been a brochure included that has broken down the fees in the past. I would think that they still do this. I'm not sure but I think they may be required by law to include this. Somebody will correct me if I'm wrong.

As far as the West Village renovations, when it was announced, it was stated that it would be a 4 year program with 25% being done each year. They should be completed in 2009. I've heard some people mention spring of 2009 but I would use the end of the year as a completion date.

scooooter · Nov 18, 2008

gjw007 said:
As far as the West Village renovations, when it was announced, it was stated that it would be a 4 year program with 25% being done each year. They should be completed in 2009. I've heard some people mention spring of 2009 but I would use the end of the year as a completion date.

Oh wow, no kidding? I missed that. I do remember, though, that there was a $50 fee that we had all voted on to get that done. I think it was like in 2006 maybe?? It must have been a 1 time fee.

Gary, the $625 you are referring to - that's for your 2 bedroom at River Island for 2006, right? And, was that just for the maintenance portion, or was that for maint and taxes?

Thank you again for all of your help!!!!!

Rhonda

slabeaume · Nov 21, 2008

The renovated units are really nice. As an owner, I'd definately demand a renovated unit now if they tried to put me in an unrenovated one---even if that's the one on my deed.

scooooter · Nov 21, 2008

LOL! The funny thing is, when we were here in Sept, they told us it was renovated. It wasn't. We just checked in Sunday and they said it was renovated again - it wasn't! Why do they not know this?