Festiva takes Southcape, who's next?

In spite of the legal effort at Southcape, to right the wrongs being perpetrated on it's unit owners, the suspected takeover has happened. This legal effort has hardly gotten off the ground in spite of it being active for a considerable time. Attempts to hold management accountable have been successfully blocked or delayed.

Just as many suspected, Festiva now manages and controls the resort.

You will remember that Southcape and Sandcastle were involved in ownership transfers/purchases at the same time, and apparently linked by a single purchase loan, in September '08.

So, how long now before the same news is announced for Sandcastle?

Sandcastle unit owners need to continue to exercise their rights to assemble and talk to each other, anywhere ; to write their grievances and complaints to all possible public officials; and to mount a legal offensive.

Any unit owner who is working with an attorney or who knows of one who can help, can leave a private comment here for me. I will not post any comments publicly unless the writer tells me to.

As time goes by, the situation will deteriorate. However, there is a basic principal in the law: there is no statute of limitations where fraud is involved.

Festiva sued by owners, backs down, regroups to try again!

Sandcastle owners, you are not alone. The more one looks, the more one finds that shows a pattern of behavior repeated in one resort after another.

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.

Our New Blog

This blog is my first and it is brand new.

The purpose of this web presence is to have a place where owners of timeshare weeks at the Sandcastle Resort in Provincetown, Ma. can become more informed about the disturbing and confusing situation at the resort, and leave comments and information they have that we can make use of in our search for the truth about what is going on and our efforts to confront what might be wrong about what is happening.

I welcome comments and factual information that will be helpful to that end. First hand accounts are also welcome, as is primary data, resource sources, websites and such that will assist us.

Please do not expect to see rants, flaming, or any kind of bad behavior. I will, to the best of my ability, allow only accurate or truthful information.

I will soon post a letter to the attorney general of Massachusetts created by an active owner, who is allowing it to be used by anyone who wishes to. I have used it and I included my own addendum about the situation to the best of my understanding, in the same letter.

I am not an attorney and I have limited resources and time for this task. Please realize that you as an owner will sooner or later be confronted with some aspect of this situation. Your participation in our efforts to get full disclosure and to shed light where there seems to be darkness, is much appreciated and will help all of us.