TimeSharing Today Magazine has been quoted here before. With their permission I am reprinting contributions to their Mar/April 07, and May/June 08 issues.
In the Mar/April 07 issue:
Owners unite!
Festiva Resorts recently purchased the Atrium in Sint Maarten and proceeded
to ask timeshare owners for a huge special assessment. Festiva owners have a
very unique contract that does not allow Festiva to take these actions,
but the corporation tried to just ignore it and impose excessive fees without
any prior communication with owners.
The contracts only allow maintenance fee increases up the island’s CPI (4%
in 2006) and do not permit any special assessments. Currently, approximately
200owners have refused to pay anything in excess of the contract allowance
and have taken Festiva to court on the island.
As the court date approached, the resort attorney informed us that Festiva
agreed to abide by the contracts as written and we do not need to pay the
special assessment or fees above the island CPI. Nor will Festiva attempt
to prevent anyone from using the resort. To fight this battle we contributed
$50 and still have around $11,000 in the account for further legal action,
if necessary, as it appears Festiva will try to get the island court system to
amend the contract at some future date.
Other owners can still join this action and avoid paying the extra
monies and help increase owner input to resort improvements.
For further details, contact Rowie Percoco at RowieP@aol.com.
Dan and Terri Shields
And in the May/June 08 issue:
Call to Atrium owners
Timeshare owners of the Atrium in St Maarten continue to battle with Festiva
management over special assessments. Since Festiva purchased the Atrium
several years ago they are claiming very large operating losses and have
reduced expenditures to improvements. They then issued bills with very large
increases in the yearly maintenance fee and added a large special assessment
completely ignoring the owners contracts that limit maintenance fee increases
to the island CPI (approximately 4%) and do not allow special assessments.
Now Festiva is trying to collect large daily fees per person from
all those who visit the Atrium. These fees are not allowed in the contract either.
There are now over 500 owners who refuse to pay the special assessments.
When the owners went to court, Festiva signed documents agreeing owners
needed to pay only the amounts required in their contracts. After more than a
year of fighting, our legal fees have amounted to about $20 per owner and we
have not paid any of the special assessments or the elevated maintenance fees
beyond the island CPI.
Our use of the facilities remains the same. We are also asking the
courts to return the extra monies collected from those people who joined our
group after paying the higher fees. But Dutch courts do not allow class action
suits so we only represent those owners who join our group.”
However, while our actions have forced Festiva to form an advisory
committee, that committee has no power and has been ignored. We seek
some veto power regarding expenditures and collections.
A review of Festiva’s financial documents has revealed that much of the
special assessment money has gone to Festiva’s operating account and not
into the capital improvement fund for the Atrium. Now Festiva has entered
the Dutch courts to try to amend our contracts and claiming only a small
minority are fighting management direction. Of course, we have no way
of contacting other owners for their support as we do not know who
they are. The larger the number of owners who are in
our group the greater the odds of success so we are renewing our efforts to
contact all owners. Please join us.
For additional information, contact Rowie Percoco at
rowiep@aol.com.
Dan Shields
Editor’s note: We have not received any response from Festiva to our
request for comment.
