Powhatan Deed - Upgrade to Trust?

[damamabearx3 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close damamabearx3]

Silly us, we attended the owner update and walked away with 2000 more points, $5500 poorer, and our two deeded properties (4br at Powhatan and 4br at Greensprings) sold to the trust. We paid $2995 a number of years ago to join the Club so we already had 99% of the benefits that the trust offers.
The maintenance fees have doubled over the past few years but the increase in the CSV-1 trust was misrepresented as they have increased by at least 70%.

Does anyone have any updated news or information about a special assessment for Powhatan? It was mentioned in the TUG forums back in October 2009 as possibly $3-4k and is a major factor in whether I (husband is pro-trust) choose to keep the conversion or rescind (by tomorrow!). The DRI salesman mentioned a possible assessment in the near future but stated possibly $200-500. My fear is the size of an assessment. My mom owned 2 timeshare units that issued a special assessment of $1200 per unit and they are still trying to collect from her grave. I would prefer to not convert the deeded properties and pay more for our timeshare but will embrace it if there is truth to the protection it provides.

Thanks in advance! We love Club and the flexibility that the point system has allowed. We spend numerous weekends in Williamsburg and enjoyed our stays in DRI properties in Ireland and Italy last summer.

[longtimer Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close longtimer]

Many years ago, I was railroaded into believing that I had to join the trust. It's amazing the lies salespeople will tell you to get you to part with your money. So far, I haven't seen any benefit to being a part of the trust and it costs extra money every year. I think I remember reading somewhere else on this forum that being in the trust doesn't protect you against assessments. DRI simply takes the total and divides it among the members of the trust. If that is the case, we are paying for assessments at ALL DRI properties. If I am wrong, perhaps someone who is more knowledgable can clarify or correct this information about the trust.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

Points salesmen are the very worst sub-species of the lying species known as timeshare salesmen. To tell if they are lying, all you have to do is look to see if their lips are moving.

[timeos2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close timeos2]

The math usually doesn't work

Silly us, we attended the owner update and walked away with 2000 more points, $5500 poorer, and our two deeded properties (4br at Powhatan and 4br at Greensprings) sold to the trust. We paid $2995 a number of years ago to join the Club so we already had 99% of the benefits that the trust offers.
The maintenance fees have doubled over the past few years but the increase in the CSV-1 trust was misrepresented as they have increased by at least 70%.

The Trust pays the same special assessment as all other owners do. It just gets spread over more owners. But they also pay the same fees for all the other resorts they own, as well as the overhead for the trust /Club itself. While there may be a short term savings (I actually doubt even that) over the long term you will pay as much or more to be in the trust as you would to own the deeded weeks. Plus you give up your resort voting rights as well as the protection a deed offers (decide for yourself that value) so IMO paying more to give up far too much for a potential, temporary savings isn't a deal. If it were me I'd stay in Club and forget converting the other weeks. Any special assessment should be less than the $5500 you'd be out and going forward your fees will most likely be lower with the weeks you already own.

Decide what works better for you and take that route. Good luck.

[damamabearx3 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close damamabearx3]

The Trust pays the same special assessment as all other owners do. It just gets spread over more owners. But they also pay the same fees for all the other resorts they own, as well as the overhead for the trust /Club itself. While there may be a short term savings (I actually doubt even that) over the long term you will pay as much or more to be in the trust as you would to own the deeded weeks. Plus you give up your resort voting rights as well as the protection a deed offers (decide for yourself that value) so IMO paying more to give up far too much for a potential, temporary savings isn't a deal. If it were me I'd stay in Club and forget converting the other weeks. Any special assessment should be less than the $5500 you'd be out and going forward your fees will most likely be lower with the weeks you already own.

This was my exact argument to the salesman, with the exception of the voting rights but I have to say that I don't know how much rights we have since many owners have converted to the Trust (per salesman and the trust inventory for Powhatan). I even spoke with the salesman today and he stated that he said in our meeting that his trust MFs went up a few dollars last year for 15,000 points but he didn't have much to say when I mentioned that the increase of .01 per point equates to $150 which is more than a few bucks. He did fall back on the "but we never said that the MFs wouldn't increase because they will go up".

Sales also tried to sell us on the transferability benefit but a Club rep confirmed today that my current membership is transferable to family members as long as I keep the contract intact by not splitting ownership of my two units (ex. listing all my kids as owners on the existing contract). Apparently I would have to do the same with the Trust to maintain full benefits which is contrary to what was said at the update. Truthfully, I don't care too much about this benefit since I hope to be around and travelling for another 30 years and distribute the usage myself. I do care about misinformation though!

Oh well, I tried not to bash sales too much because I knew what we were getting into by just attending the meeting which is why we have never referred people. We have taken family and friends on vacation with us only to have them tell us a few years later that they are now owners. At least we previously warned them and didn't set them up to take the sales pitch.

Thanks for everyone's input and opinions.

[Ryne08 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ryne08]

Personally, I do not feel it is a wise decision to give up a deed for the trust,

[DRIvaDiva Banned Find all posts View Profile Close DRIvaDiva]

Silly us, we attended the owner update and walked away with 2000 more points, $5500 poorer, and our two deeded properties (4br at Powhatan and 4br at Greensprings) sold to the trust. We paid $2995 a number of years ago to join the Club so we already had 99% of the benefits that the trust offers.
The maintenance fees have doubled over the past few years but the increase in the CSV-1 trust was misrepresented as they have increased by at least 70%.

Does anyone have any updated news or information about a special assessment for Powhatan? It was mentioned in the TUG forums back in October 2009 as possibly $3-4k and is a major factor in whether I (husband is pro-trust) choose to keep the conversion or rescind (by tomorrow!). The DRI salesman mentioned a possible assessment in the near future but stated possibly $200-500. My fear is the size of an assessment. My mom owned 2 timeshare units that issued a special assessment of $1200 per unit and they are still trying to collect from her grave. I would prefer to not convert the deeded properties and pay more for our timeshare but will embrace it if there is truth to the protection it provides.

Thanks in advance! We love Club and the flexibility that the point system has allowed. We spend numerous weekends in Williamsburg and enjoyed our stays in DRI properties in Ireland and Italy last summer.

Silly you! Do the math, the salesman insinuates all sorts of things, if you own the timeshare for the long haul you will pay more in maintenance in the long run, you are just protected from a 'spike' at your deeded resort, so you pay for less of the spike but you pay for every spike. The Trust costs money to administer, the salesman doesn't count that but any sane owner must and the $200 or so is significant no matter how many points you average it over.

[DRIvaDiva Banned Find all posts View Profile Close DRIvaDiva]

Many years ago, I was railroaded into believing that I had to join the trust. It's amazing the lies salespeople will tell you to get you to part with your money. So far, I haven't seen any benefit to being a part of the trust and it costs extra money every year. I think I remember reading somewhere else on this forum that being in the trust doesn't protect you against assessments. DRI simply takes the total and divides it among the members of the trust. If that is the case, we are paying for assessments at ALL DRI properties. If I am wrong, perhaps someone who is more knowledgable can clarify or correct this information about the trust.

The benefit to the Trust is really only that you can plan 13 months in advance. The salesman will insinuate that those who don't join the Trust will not get inventory at for example St Maarten, but the truth of it is that at 13 months the Trust members get only Trust inventory, then at 10 months out all Club members have access to the deeded weeks that may be in the Club. But, as more and more of the inventory goes to the Club the deeded inventory is smaller thus harder to get.

[DRIvaDiva Banned Find all posts View Profile Close DRIvaDiva]

Points salesmen are the very worst sub-species of the lying species known as timeshare salesmen. To tell if they are lying, all you have to do is look to see if their lips are moving.

How true, especially the in-house ones that specialize in getting you to pay more for what you already own.

[DRIvaDiva Banned Find all posts View Profile Close DRIvaDiva]

Silly us, we attended the owner update and walked away with 2000 more points, $5500 poorer, and our two deeded properties (4br at Powhatan and 4br at Greensprings) sold to the trust. We paid $2995 a number of years ago to join the Club so we already had 99% of the benefits that the trust offers.
The maintenance fees have doubled over the past few years but the increase in the CSV-1 trust was misrepresented as they have increased by at least 70%.

Does anyone have any updated news or information about a special assessment for Powhatan? It was mentioned in the TUG forums back in October 2009 as possibly $3-4k and is a major factor in whether I (husband is pro-trust) choose to keep the conversion or rescind (by tomorrow!). The DRI salesman mentioned a possible assessment in the near future but stated possibly $200-500. My fear is the size of an assessment. My mom owned 2 timeshare units that issued a special assessment of $1200 per unit and they are still trying to collect from her grave. I would prefer to not convert the deeded properties and pay more for our timeshare but will embrace it if there is truth to the protection it provides.

Thanks in advance! We love Club and the flexibility that the point system has allowed. We spend numerous weekends in Williamsburg and enjoyed our stays in DRI properties in Ireland and Italy last summer.

Your husband is a fool, but aren't all husbands? Maintenance fees in the Trust will go up as much as any other and as a former owner in Williamsburg, when I watched it early on, the fees for the Trust went up more than Williamsburg.

[DRIvaDiva Banned Find all posts View Profile Close DRIvaDiva]

The Trust pays the same special assessment as all other owners do. It just gets spread over more owners. But they also pay the same fees for all the other resorts they own, as well as the overhead for the trust /Club itself. While there may be a short term savings (I actually doubt even that) over the long term you will pay as much or more to be in the trust as you would to own the deeded weeks. Plus you give up your resort voting rights as well as the protection a deed offers (decide for yourself that value) so IMO paying more to give up far too much for a potential, temporary savings isn't a deal. If it were me I'd stay in Club and forget converting the other weeks. Any special assessment should be less than the $5500 you'd be out and going forward your fees will most likely be lower with the weeks you already own.

Decide what works better for you and take that route. Good luck.

Well said, the voting rights are critical to the developrs plan to stay in control of all resorts and make as much money managing as they do selling.

[damamabearx3 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close damamabearx3]

Silly you! Do the math, the salesman insinuates all sorts of things, if you own the timeshare for the long haul you will pay more in maintenance in the long run, you are just protected from a 'spike' at your deeded resort, so you pay for less of the spike but you pay for every spike. The Trust costs money to administer, the salesman doesn't count that but any sane owner must and the $200 or so is significant no matter how many points you average it over.

DRIvaDiva,
It is your post (Link to thread) which referenced the $3-4k rumor. The $200-500 figure was thrown out by the salesman. Have you heard any dollar amounts beyond the initial rumor? I agree with you on having to pay for every spike in the trust but forgot to add in the cost to manage the trust.

All,
I have already informed my husband that we are rescinding and he has agreed that there is enough discrepancy in what was said versus my discoveries. Granted it wasn't as much discrepancy as in 2006 when we rescinded from the trust and I can guarantee that we will never go on another "update" session because we realize that they will always be trying to sell us something new, instead of giving us an update about our current benefits and our resort. Heck, after rescinding twice perhaps they won't invite to another update!!!

Thanks again for all the input. It has further solidified my position.

[Spence Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Spence]

mamabear,
It was her post that asked about it, but I never saw any substantive responses, did you?

[damamabearx3 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close damamabearx3]

No, I didn't which was why I was asking if anyone had heard anything more about this since 4 months had passed. She did post two messages in the thread with the second message quoted below. The $3-4k figure in the first post and the major in the post below is what has me concerned since major can be a relative term.

Here's the answer from a Powhatan HOA Board Member (not one of the three Demployees):
...according to a non-employee board member, a major assessment appears likely.

[damamabearx3 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close damamabearx3]

Rescission letter sent out this morning. Thanks again everyone for your input.