Report Abuse

To all Harborside Phase II Owners, Thank you all for your interest in attempting to rectify the increases in the Harborside at Atlantis / SVO HOA fees. Since my initial post on Redweek, on Dec 27, 2011, many of you have also posted your rightful concerns, indignations and fabulous outrage about Maintenance Fee increases. I believe we have a consensus that the increases are not justified, nor is any reasonable justification ever offered by Starwood. The quality of service, condition of our resort property remains incongruent with a $20 million a year budget. I believe we could simply build a new one for $20 million and....I will leave it at that. After much thought, research and soliciting legal advice there are few options we can collectively take to "right this". For those of you thinking "lawsuit" of any kind...well...through research I have found that a suit can only be initiated in the Bahamas. Finding an attorney in the Bahamas, that would not paint a picture, through rose colored glasses so he could milk our group for legal fees and drag this on for years, would be very difficult to find. All these people are in bed with each other and guess who gets .....? There are two paths that can be taken and I believe both should be. This means that we might have to "hang in there" for another year, with these exorbitant MF, while setting the stage. It all starts with documentation. For those of you who have called the SV Management accounting office and questioned expenses, you were probably told you must submit your request in writing. If any of you have done so, please disclose what happened and the information you received. Here's the deal..The more explicit the expense detail/disclosure requested, the more exacting of a respond can be required. i.e. If one were to ask for an accounting of insurance premiums paid in behalf of the HOA, the answer would be "such and such amounts". However a request for insurance premium payments AND the following would yield much deeper insight: Who is the payee and where are they located? List all liability and property policies. Who are the agents and underwriters for each policy? What are the policy numbers? What are the coverage periods? What are the deductibles per policy? What claims have been made over the past three years for each policy and how much was the original claim? Were these claims paid to the HOA by the underwriter? if so how much was paid and how were those funds accounted for in yearly statements sent to HOA members So, excuse my bluntness...but by crawling up their behinds...their responses to more detailed questions might start to yield valuable information. I am not a forensic accountant, but have been involve in a number of legal cases where such accounting was required. Some of these questions were outlined in my initial Redweek post...I know what questions to ask and what will turn up the heat. Thus, I propose that each of us pose different questions. I, and/or anyone else interested in supporting this effort, would co-author these questions, to either expand your own question(s) or simply to augment them with other question. Submission would need to be a choreographed effort to yield the evidence we needed. Allow me to illuminate the fact that a non-response or responses which did not adequately disclose requested information can be useful too. Secondly, as a group we have the power to change the existing board members....the existing board must be voted out....and that may be a challenge by this coming Annual Meeting on Sept 7th. But, if the existing board and the management company have their feet held to the fire that may catalyze change. Thus I am passing along the following idea.... All HOA Members have been mailed a facsimile of the postcard tjat appears in this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vxexo3vn6jvlpyf/2012%20Harborside%20II%20Meeting%20Notice%20.pdf On side two of the postcard there is log-in information whereby the Homeowner can vote by proxy. If you log on to the Harborside HOA site to vote, you have the option of entering a candidate's name to run for the Board. Here is what the page looks like. http://screencast.com/t/b5IabJ7U You will also see a Dixie Proctor as a candidate. I have reached out to Dixie (Facebook, linked in) to find out what her position and attitude is about the ever increasing HOA MF ...but have not heard back from her. Thus, I would not put my faith into someone who will not communicate with a fellow HOA member, while seeking their vote, plus she has been on the Board in the past. Here's my preliminary proposal, which is subject to anyone else's ideas and the collective consensus off those who wish to participate : I (or some other pro-active soul) must go to the Annual Meeting representing a new voice. Arrive on Sept 4th or 5th. The purpose of an early arrive will be to document/photograph as much of the property as possible Seek out and meet up with any HOA members that may be at Harborside that week, and survey their interest and opinions in this matter and expand our database of HOA owner contacts Query onsite resort management with specific questions regarding management practices. Report back and communicate with all interested and participating HOA members on findings, while at Harborside. Wait until Sept 6th to actually cast a vote for Henry Siegel (if it is I that goes) to have "General Powers" in both the Harborside Resort Condominium II Association Limited AND the Harborside Resort II Vacation Ownership Association Limited If I go I will contribute my time and energy gratis to our collective effort. As well I happen to have 14,000 remaining StarOptions which must be used by Dec 31st. and am now checking to see if I can use them from the 5th to the 7th..I'd fly out the evening of the 7th after the HOA annual meeting. However, the cost of travel/food, etc must be covered by our group. A round trip ticket from LAX will be around $800+$1000 to start. Funding can be through my Paypal account (if it is I that goes) and all contributed funds will be accounted for with copies of receipts, etc. You can bet there will be no limo from the airport to paradise island..... I figure if each interested party contributes $250 we should have all expenses covered and them some. If there are more funds received than needed, excess funds will be proportionately refunded to each funding HOA member. Your funds give you a voice in this process. If it is another person that goes, rather than I, I remain committed to spearheading this effort and I too will then contribute $250.00 to pay the expenses of that person who will go. So that's all for now..I think this is adequate information to start with. I simply request that each of your respond quickly and succinctly with your thoughts, ideas and questions to clarify any matter. Forward this to any other phase II owner you know. Next step will be to have a teleconference with all interested parties. This must be done prior to the 19th and I will set this up after I hear back from all of you. On Aug. 19th, we leave for Maui (we now prefer to use our StarOptions at Kanapali North) and will remain there until August 28th. While in Maui my cell phone works fine ...my email is a given. Thanks for your time and consideration...our initial path is set...let's see if we can walk together.... with kind regards, Henry Siegel henrysiegel@me.com 323.680.5411