throwing in the towel

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

Hi, as a European member I am aware of the many growing concerns and discontent since the last huge hike in Fees that a lot of members have and would like to see a better policy that allows membership to be surrendered rather than the present one which requires death,terminal illness or abject poverty. Many members voiced their concerns elsewhere on the internet, when faced with the increase, that for whatever reason their they could not foresee being able to pay the MF every year in the future. Bad planning some might say, but based on the previous levels of increase that is not really true. Many of these members who have not paid their 2009 MF are faced with court action etc. etc. and are frightened as to the prospects.
The statement that these members knew what they were doing and signed the contracts of thier own free will has been made often enough by the company and by members who believe that they would never find themselves in that situation.
It appears that before signing the contracts some were told by unscrupulous salesman " don't worry if you want to leave, you can sell the points easily to someone else", we all know now that that is definately not the case. You cannot even give points away in Europe, I don't know if that is the case in the US?

Personally I am happy with my membership and would not want to surrender my membership for the foreseeable future, but I do not have a crystal ball and might suddenly find myself in a position where I cannot carry on and need to get out. I would much prefer to have the peace of mind that , if necessary, I could leave the club in an amicable and agreeable manner.
What does anyone else think? Is this reasonable and do you think DRI should consider amending the rules?

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

DRI has it set up now that they can amend any rule they like at any time. They have total control even though members are owners.

In the US, owners have had varying success in getting DRI to take back their paid in full memberships. Before the crunch, DRI was even buying their time back on eBay at up to about 70cents per point. It is not their duty or responsibility to take back or buy back a membership, but there certainly is a financial benefit to them.

DRI has said from the day they bought Sunterra that maintenance fees at all the resorts was WAY TOO LOW, they are 'correcting' this on the shoulders of the owners as fast as they can.

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

I may be wrong but I thought I saw comment recently that DRI in Europe were accepting termination of membership as long as all fees were paid up to date. There was something about them requiring 12 months notice to do this. I'll see if I can find the original post and put a link to it.

I can well understand people being extremely unhappy with any system where sales staff, in all probability with the knowledge of senior management, have stretched the truth to breaking point and beyond in order to sign people up. The unfortunate reality is that I have yet to come across anybody who has any of these promises in writing. Despite a situation where the same story of half-truths and downright lies is commonplace it seems not to be evidence enough on its own for the contract to be declared void.

I suspect most of us, in whichever resort chain, have been stung for 'special assessment' or seen m/f rise far more than we were told they would/could when we signed up. The bottom line is that we are where we are and the companies hold most of the aces. It seems the only way out is to sell to somebody else or get things paid up to date and hope your managing company will take it back.

An ideal situation? Obviously far from it, but are there any other realistic options?

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

DRI has it set up now that they can amend any rule they like at any time. They have total control even though members are owners.

In the US, owners have had varying success in getting DRI to take back their paid in full memberships. Before the crunch, DRI was even buying their time back on eBay at up to about 70cents per point. It is not their duty or responsibility to take back or buy back a membership, but there certainly is a financial benefit to them.

DRI has said from the day they bought Sunterra that maintenance fees at all the resorts was WAY TOO LOW, they are 'correcting' this on the shoulders of the owners as fast as they can.

You are absolutely right about the changing of rules,Spence it is an awful state of affairs when members have no real input into rule changes, something that dri should rectifying if they truly want the support and respect of the membership and not just their money.

I accept that dri have no obligation to buy back points if a member wants out, but surrendering points and ultimately membership on an amicable and agreeable basis is another thing.
Personally I don't view my points as having any monetary value, the value is in what I can do with them. If I wanted out at some stage for my own reasons I would not expect dri to give me my money back.

The point about the fees being historically low is again correct and increases are to be expected annually until the problem is corrected, but who will judge when that point is reached?

[hercules24 Member Find all posts View Profile Close hercules24]

where do we go from here - fees - termination

Yes we have all heard the tale of Sunterra under funding the club through fees recieved from the members but there was also a lot of allegations made just before the take over by DRI that money was being filtered out of the club by certain individuals in positions of power within the former company (there are articles on the web that go into detail on this). The perception of a lot of EU members was that the club was stagnating at this time.

So in come DRI and we are served with an enormous increase in fees in 2008 and in Europe we were hit with a further substancial bill to cover sterling sliding against the Euro. At the end of 2008 it was reported by DRI that the company was now financially stable. So in 2009 we were served with another enormous increase on top of the 2008 increase plus again a large exchange levy - why was there a need for another huge increase if DRI covered their restructuring costs in 2008 and started towards a large programme of refurbishments.

It is fair to say that I have witnessed some improvements in resort quality due to refurbishments and yes these do not come cheap, however, a watershed must be reached as there are only so many units of inventory that can be taken out of the inventory for refurbishment every year. I therefore hope that we will see a much more reasonable fee charge for 2010, especially with a lot of Europe entering deflation.

The abandonment of the restrictions placed on second hand points can only help the fluidity of points transfers between members as will a stabilisation of fees into the future.

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

So in come DRI ..... and in Europe we were hit with a further substancial bill to cover sterling sliding against the Euro.

As I understand it DRI in Europe charges the maintenance fee in Euros. When the £ was strong against the € that was good news for those in the UK. I don't think even DRI could foresee the massive, and rapid, drop in value of the £ against the €. That change alone created an effective m/f increase of about 1/3rd. Add into that any planned real terms increase in fees by DRI and the effect on those in the UK has been pretty disastrous.
I get the impression that DRI m/f have always been at the high end of European timeshares so the pain as detailed above is even greater. Maybe DRI do need to look at their short term plans given the current financial situation as it can't really be in any parties interests to have membership defaulting on payment.
The potential difficulty for DRI is that if, as has been suggested elsewhere, the previous company had allowed many resorts to deteriorate very badly then money needs to be spent now if they are to keep the existing owners happy. Catch 22 - poor facilities mean owners are even more unhappy about increasing fees, whilst without fee increases the facilities can't be improved.
Does anybody have an answer to that imponderable?

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

How is DRI doing financially? They took on a lot of debt to buy up Sunterra. I believe they must have increased all the fees to carry the debt load. I'll bet a lot of those increased fees are just going to service debt.

Anyone have a sense of it? Just think how tough it would be if they were able to take on another $500M in debt to buy Bluegreen.

[hercules24 Member Find all posts View Profile Close hercules24]

DRI debt

I received a statement from Simon Crawford Welch who satted that as at 31/12/08 the company were now financially stable so the 20% increase in fees in 2008 must have helped finace that, we in EU received another bill for 17% on top of that mid 2008 for Euro levy.

In 2009 we were hit with another 20% increase + 15% levy for exchange.

The EU fees are set in sterling but they hold a meeting about 2 months ahead of the submission of invoices to members to determine fees, in 2008 the fees were set at 1.45 Eu = £1 and hence the need for a levy, in 2009 the bills were set at 1.25 Eu = £1 and as we know the £1 fell to parity with the Euro in January 2009, fortunatly the trend is now up to around 1.17 so hopefully with cost savings that will have been brought about with falling inflation we will not be hit with a further levy next year. As much as we can see investment in the resorts it is evident that cost savings have been made in so much that not so many site personnel (like maids) are on the resorts now and standards are still being maintained. The impact of the EU levy equates to around 80% of the overall EU fees as obviously the UK resorts are not impacted upon by the Euro.

I agree members expect quality and we would not want to see this diminish but as the previous poster states with the last 2 years bills summounting to around 35% per annum it is hard to account for that in an average household budget and that coupled with the recession and wage freezes and job losses in the UK and you can see the problem. I am certain this is the same in the USA as well although you may have not been hit exchange problems as all fees would be set in dollars.

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

How is DRI doing financially? They took on a lot of debt to buy up Sunterra. I believe they must have increased all the fees to carry the debt load. I'll bet a lot of those increased fees are just going to service debt.

Anyone have a sense of it? Just think how tough it would be if they were able to take on another $500M in debt to buy Bluegreen.

I received a statement from Simon Crawford Welch who satted that as at 31/12/08 the company were now financially stable so the 20% increase in fees in 2008 must have helped finace that, we in EU received another bill for 17% on top of that mid 2008 for Euro levy.

In 2009 we were hit with another 20% increase + 15% levy for exchange.

The EU fees are set in sterling but they hold a meeting about 2 months ahead of the submission of invoices to members to determine fees, in 2008 the fees were set at 1.45 Eu = £1 and hence the need for a levy, in 2009 the bills were set at 1.25 Eu = £1 and as we know the £1 fell to parity with the Euro in January 2009, fortunatly the trend is now up to around 1.17 so hopefully with cost savings that will have been brought about with falling inflation we will not be hit with a further levy next year. As much as we can see investment in the resorts it is evident that cost savings have been made in so much that not so many site personnel (like maids) are on the resorts now and standards are still being maintained. The impact of the EU levy equates to around 80% of the overall EU fees as obviously the UK resorts are not impacted upon by the Euro.

I agree members expect quality and we would not want to see this diminish but as the previous poster states with the last 2 years bills summounting to around 35% per annum it is hard to account for that in an average household budget and that coupled with the recession and wage freezes and job losses in the UK and you can see the problem. I am certain this is the same in the USA as well although you may have not been hit exchange problems as all fees would be set in dollars.

I don't pretend to be an accountant although I have more letters after my name than Simon Crawford Welch. While the financial well being of the management company is important, you shouldn't scare people with statements like they must have upped all the fees to carry the debt load. Management fees have certainly gone up, management fees could be considered fees like the Club Fee and the management percentage that the management company charges on top of the resort operating costs, and in fact, this fee has gone up tremendously. But the operating cost of your resort or resort group should not be affected by the management company's debt load. What is grossly affected should be the purchase cost retail.

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

I accept that dri have no obligation to buy back points if a member wants out, but surrendering points and ultimately membership on an amicable and agreeable basis is another thing.

No, it's not another thing. You bought it and in a time when the company is having trouble selling what they already have in inventory, why should they take on your annual obligations, also. But, you can bet they will when the economy turns around.

Personally I don't view my points as having any monetary value, the value is in what I can do with them.

Very true.

The point about the fees being historically low is again correct and increases are to be expected annually until the problem is corrected, but who will judge when that point is reached?

Obviously, since the members have no say and are railroaded on any board they sit on by a management majority, the majority on the board rules even though the majority of the inventory belongs to the individual owners.

[hercules24 Member Find all posts View Profile Close hercules24]

Debt

Sorry I did not mean to intimate that the fee increase in 2008 was totally attributed to pay off the former company debt and yes I appreciate that DRI is totally structured differently from the former company and I also understand a charge is made across the resorts by the management company and I also respect that the DRI directors are fully entitled to their dividends on their investments - my statements were made in the true spirit of what I understood and if SCW (who is no longer with DRI) is not qualified to make such statements then perhaps he should not do so.

So how are DRI doing finacially ?

I am not certain if each of the 4 DRI collections draw up their own accounts (I assume they do) and perhaps SCW was just commenting on the EU group ?

It is clear they are making significant investments in refurbishments in the EU company so the money must be coming thick and fast to pay for these so I assume the company is now reasonably financially stable.

Thank you for bringing concerns to my attention.

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

I like owning at resorts where the homeowners are in control, we elect the board, and they hire management which understands it is the hired help and not the one in control. Several resorts I have owned at require that the homeowners vote at the annual HOA meeting on the amount of the next year's m/f. The proposed m/f amount by the board with all justifying figures is sent out in the newsletter for all members to see. Any s/a also has to be adopted by the full membership after it is proposed by the board. These arrangements put the homeowners in the drivers seat on finances.

I would not own at a resort with a board that is either developer controlled or under the thumb of management.

I may be wrong but I thought I saw comment recently that DRI in Europe were accepting termination of membership as long as all fees were paid up to date. There was something about them requiring 12 months notice to do this. I'll see if I can find the original post and put a link to it.

I can well understand people being extremely unhappy with any system where sales staff, in all probability with the knowledge of senior management, have stretched the truth to breaking point and beyond in order to sign people up. The unfortunate reality is that I have yet to come across anybody who has any of these promises in writing. Despite a situation where the same story of half-truths and downright lies is commonplace it seems not to be evidence enough on its own for the contract to be declared void.

I suspect most of us, in whichever resort chain, have been stung for 'special assessment' or seen m/f rise far more than we were told they would/could when we signed up. The bottom line is that we are where we are and the companies hold most of the aces. It seems the only way out is to sell to somebody else or get things paid up to date and hope your managing company will take it back.

An ideal situation? Obviously far from it, but are there any other realistic options?

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

This is not TST. You are allowed to say ''Sunterra'' here, rather than having to use the euphemism ''the former company''.

Sorry I did not mean to intimate that the fee increase in 2008 was totally attributed to pay off the former company debt and yes I appreciate that DRI is totally structured differently from the former company and I also understand a charge is made across the resorts by the management company and I also respect that the DRI directors are fully entitled to their dividends on their investments - my statements were made in the true spirit of what I understood and if SCW (who is no longer with DRI) is not qualified to make such statements then perhaps he should not do so.

So how are DRI doing finacially ?

I am not certain if each of the 4 DRI collections draw up their own accounts (I assume they do) and perhaps SCW was just commenting on the EU group ?

It is clear they are making significant investments in refurbishments in the EU company so the money must be coming thick and fast to pay for these so I assume the company is now reasonably financially stable.

Thank you for bringing concerns to my attention.

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

How is DRI doing financially? They took on a lot of debt to buy up Sunterra. I believe they must have increased all the fees to carry the debt load. I'll bet a lot of those increased fees are just going to service debt.

Anyone have a sense of it? Just think how tough it would be if they were able to take on another $500M in debt to buy Bluegreen.

They did some asset stripping to ease that debt, selling off one of their crown jewels, Carlton Court, in central London. Given the high prices of London property, I am sure that brought them a pretty penny.

There are now reports from sources with a history of credibility that they are going to unload Wychnor Park in the near term. They had already started the process of driving out the remaining weeks-based owners there. That move, however, is being denied by official sources at DRI. I guess only time will tell how that one plays out.

Do DRI owners get any accounting of where their money goes? In all of my timeshares, I get budgets and financial statements,

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

This is not TST. You are allowed to say ''Sunterra'' here, rather than having to use the euphemism ''the former company''.

You have no idea what a relief and pleasure that is for those of us who have previously been members of uk based forums which are controlled by over-zealous members of the Thought Police !