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I found an article in the most recent Timesharing Today magazine most interesting. It involves a lawsuit filed in Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles, by owners at two resorts, Royal Palms Beach Club and Flamingo Beach Club agsinst DRI. The owners who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit are purchasers from the prior developers of the resorts, and have already obtained an injunction against DRI and beaten DRI's motion to dismiss. From the article there are a wide variety of financial and management issues in the lawsuit, including improper payment of loans out of the reserve fund and failure to charge DRI-owned weeks all of the appropriate expenses. DRI has no sales force on Sint Maarten and uses all of the weeks it owns at the resorts for its points club. While the article does not say when DRI acquired the resorts, it is likely that they were acquired from Sunterror. While an association has been formed by owners at the two resorts for purposes of the lawsuit, it does not appear at this stage that they are seeking control of the resorts' owners associations. That may come later, however, if they are ultimately succesful in thier lawsuit.
This reminds me of the bitter lawsuit between the timeshare owners at Blue Beard's Castle and Fairfield (now Wyndham) Resorts, which had purchased the resort from its original developer. That resort is on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. That also involved numerous financial and management issues, and Fairfield was using the weeks it owned there for its points club. There were also bitter battles for control of the five seperate owners associations at the resort every year at the annual owners meetings, with Fairfield trying to install management stooges. Ultimately, after lengthy discovery, the owners got the evidence to nail Fairfield's hide to the wall at trial, so Fairfield simply declared its Virgin Islands unit, which had been set up as a seperate corporation, bankrupt and walked away. The timeshare owners, with a new management company, have kept the resort going, although with high maintenance fees.
This reminds me of the bitter lawsuit between the timeshare owners at Blue Beard's Castle and Fairfield (now Wyndham) Resorts, which had purchased the resort from its original developer. That resort is on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. That also involved numerous financial and management issues, and Fairfield was using the weeks it owned there for its points club. There were also bitter battles for control of the five seperate owners associations at the resort every year at the annual owners meetings, with Fairfield trying to install management stooges. Ultimately, after lengthy discovery, the owners got the evidence to nail Fairfield's hide to the wall at trial, so Fairfield simply declared its Virgin Islands unit, which had been set up as a seperate corporation, bankrupt and walked away. The timeshare owners, with a new management company, have kept the resort going, although with high maintenance fees.
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