What is Starwood hiding?

[calgarygary]

I am getting convinced that Starwood is hiding something from their timeshare owners. Today, Oct. 17th, I received my snail mail notice of the Bella Florida Condominium Association annual meeting. The notice was dated Sept. 5, 2008 for a meeting that occurred on Oct. 3, 2008 or I could have returned my signed proxy (only takes a minute according to Starwood) by Sept. 26th, 2008.

I know it takes a little longer to get mail between the U.S. & Canada but 6 weeks? Did anyone receive their notice in a timely manner that would have allowed a returned proxy? What is Starwood hiding that they don't want our attendance - maybe that we will ask the HOA to account for the $ we don't receive from spg and starwood use of our facilities?

By the way, under Florida statute:

However, written notice of any meeting at which nonemergency special assessments, or at which amendment to rules regarding unit use, will be considered shall be mailed or delivered to the unit owners and posted conspicuously on the condominium property not less than 14 days prior to the meeting. Evidence of compliance with this 14-day notice shall be made by an affidavit executed by the person providing the notice and filed among the official records of the association.

I would like to know who they have stating under affidavit that we received 14 day notice by mail.

 

[BLUE AYES]

Compliance to notice provisions are done by an affidavit of service which is basically swearing to the fact that the notices were sent out by first class mail.

 

[DeniseM]

We usually get our notices for SDO and WKORV no more than 2 weeks before the meetings, making it virtually impossible to attend, even if we wanted to. At the one and only Starwood BOD meeting I attended, Starwood Reps. rush through the proceedings and made it clear that they were only going through the motions to meet the requirements of the law. Owner's questions and motions from the floor were brushed off. I don't believe that Starwood really wants owners to attend these meetings...

 

[calgarygary]

Compliance to notice provisions are done by an affidavit of service which is basically swearing to the fact that the notices were sent out by first class mail.

But under Florida Statute, those notices were to be mailed at least 14 days prior. Do you really believe that it takes 4 weeks for mail to reach Canada or is it possible, just possible, that whomever is swearing out the affidavit is "fudging" the facts.

 

[BLUE AYES]

Simple answer, what is the post mark on the envelope.

 

[Denise P]

I went to the Key West owners meeting at VV last year and raised this very issue.

I don't remember exactly what the reply was but I am sure they mentioned passing this out to an external mailing company to bulk mail owners. I said that as an International owner, we didn't event have enough time to post the reply back and the prompt response to this was that they are very happy to receive replies by fax.

My observations about the meeting are very similar to Denise M's. It was very rushed. I think there were about 4 owners there in total and it was such a novelty that we were all asked to introduce ourselves at the start of the meeting along with the board members who outnumbered us by about 2 to 1.

I found the experience very similar to watching horse racing on TV. They blurted their names and titles out at a hundred miles and hour then spoke about their area of responsibility at the same pace, raised motions which were backed instantly by other board members without you even having a chance to work out what the topic was.

The meeting was over in about 15 minutes and they made us feel like celebrities as obviously British owners are an extremely unusual visitor to these meetings. Then they were gone as quickly as they arrived saying there were more meetings to attend. I think the same Starwood officials whisked themselves off to the meeting of another VV board.

Needless to say it was well worth the $50 return taxi fare from Disney where we were staying at the time. Would I attend again? Sure, if we were staying on site!

 

[calgarygary]

Simple answer, what is the post mark on the envelope.

very conveniently, their postage meter did not include a date.

 

[calgarygary]

The underlying concern that I have about this is I don't want a surprise a view years down the road where Starwood's controlled HOA has approved some obscene amount for renovations and we owners are caught completely off guard. If we can force the proper notice onto Starwood, utilize the proxy system, then maybe, just maybe we can avoid such scenarios.

 

[pointsjunkie]

i got mine in a timely manner.3-4 weeks before the meeting.

same with wkv and sdo.

 

[BradC]

i got mine in a timely manner.3-4 weeks before the meeting.

same with wkv and sdo.

Same for me from VV-Bella and WKV.

 

[calgarygary]

Maybe it's just me & Starwood just doesn't like me and doesn't want me at any of their meetings. I might have to change my screen name to lil nodge.