Manhattan Club Lawsuit

robertf795 wrote:

Yes I believe if you have two time shares you should have two ballots.

Yes, already voted, let´ s hope for the best !!!!!

this forum is becoming repetitious and boring. merely asking questions about voting and giving obvious answers is helpful only to the questioner and responder. if there is any TMC news that is worthwhile, post it here, e. g., after bluegreen takes over, what are owners' fates? the voting issue probably is meaningless anyway. time will tell.

i don't mean to be critical, but come on people.

BTW, i was at TMC last weekend. spoke with over 10 different employees. either they're sincere about not knowing anything about new management (eichner's exiting, et al) or they've been fully brainwashed into not saying a word about what's currently going on. the latter seems somewhat reasonable given eichner's tactics...............e.g., say nothing or "sayonara"......hasta la vista, baby. on the plus side, almost all of the people working there: bell-people, front desk personnel, concierge desk folks, room maintenance men and women, continue to be very nice and extremely accommodating. wherever i was at TMC. was spotless, but the furniture in the one bedroom suite needs REPLACEMENT, desperately, especially the occasional tables in the living room and bedroom. i was able to see one of the penthouse suites............same thing........FURNITURE REPLACEMENT (ESP. LIVING ROOM) IS IN ORDER. am i headed for even higher maintenance fees????

A couple years ago they put me in the unit where wall paper was peeling, sofa had stains we did not want to seat at, door handle was falling down, bathroom floor had cracks, and it was so cold we complained. Nothing is changing. What are we paying our maintenance fees for?

Chris I agree with you about the forum! This forum is pointless without specific action and solid news to report

The lawyer has given me a few questions that I will be asking in BoArd meeting today. They may not get answered but I will try. More news to follow.

As many of you know, RedWeek has covered Manhattan Club issues for five years ---- and published more news stories about it than any other publication. We intend to publish our next report on Aug. 14. As part of our research, we would like to speak with any owners who attended today's Board meeting in NYC. Feel free to call with your observations by Friday: 310-801-3479. Jeff

I have a penthouse unit and the last time I visited TMC the furniture (in its entirety) was very bad. The carpets were worn and extremely dirty. This was approximately 2 years ago so I can only imagine how it looks today. I wouldn’t say I got my $59k return on investment.

chrisv126 wrote:

this forum is becoming repetitious and boring. merely asking questions about voting and giving obvious answers is helpful only to the questioner and responder. if there is any TMC news that is worthwhile, post it here, e. g., after bluegreen takes over, what are owners' fates? the voting issue probably is meaningless anyway. time will tell.

i don't mean to be critical, but come on people.

BTW, i was at TMC last weekend. spoke with over 10 different employees. either they're sincere about not knowing anything about new management (eichner's exiting, et al) or they've been fully brainwashed into not saying a word about what's currently going on. the latter seems somewhat reasonable given eichner's tactics...............e.g., say nothing or "sayonara"......hasta la vista, baby. on the plus side, almost all of the people working there: bell-people, front desk personnel, concierge desk folks, room maintenance men and women, continue to be very nice and extremely accommodating. where ever i was at TMC was spotless, but the furniture in the one bedroom suite needs REPLACEMENT, desperately, especially the occasional tables in the living room and bedroom. i was able to see one of the penthouse suites............same thing........FURNITURE REPLACEMENT (ESP. LIVING ROOM) IS IN ORDER.

sueo,

am anxiously awaiting for some MEANINGFUL news, albeit the possibility something i'd rather not read. not sure of how "pushy" you are, but it seems at this type of BOD meeting, you must assert yourself as forcefully as possible to get your questions answered. please beware of the possibly tainted security personnel who will make every attempt to keep you quiet if you appear to be overstepping the bounds that THEY established.

sueo79 wrote:

Chris I agree with you about the forum! This forum is pointless without specific action and solid news to report

The lawyer has given me a few questions that I will be asking in BoArd meeting today. They may not get answered but I will try. More news to follow.

Jeff W - I will try and call you shortly for your Redweek post but I was in attendance at Board meeting. The same non sponsor Board people got voted in again - surprise surprise!) and the other 4 were NEW(sponsor seats) and they were from Bluegreen Corporation. Bluegreen (as we were told) has owned about 50 units since 2010, and in June gained another 100 (from where - not sure - perhaps Eichners own inventory??). So Bluegreen controls about 150 units.

.Eichner was NOT present - and from speaking to many owners that come every year - apparently he has never showed up. Note: the non sponsor board members indicated they send out email newsletters to all owners at least twice? a year - many in the room said they had never received anything. My advice - call TMC if you are an active owner, and make sure your current EMAIL is on this list and/or check your junk mail.

I would guestimate there was 100 or so mostly frustrated owners in the room. Most confusion was in regard to Bluegreen's involvment today versus what it will be in the future when they are allowed to 100% 'manage" the Manhattan Club and regarding the Settlement status . The current management company is still URBAN and will be for next 3 years per the settlement agreement. Almost every person asked a question or gave the Board a complaint - most of them saying the same thing! That is - there NEEDS to be a buy back program, heck even for a small fee to just dump it and be done! Median age in the room as 67 or so, and many of them cannot continue to pay the high fees, or they enjoyed the Club 10-15 years now and no longer have a use for it but cannot get rid of the burden. Many people asked Sal Reale and Joshua Wirshba (TMC Operations) about the settlement and they had no news, no updates, really did not seem to want to talk about it. Sal R referred everyone with questions to the OFFERING plan(said the "timeshare" clearly was NEVER intended to be an investment property as per Offering plan; , and Joshua referred everyone to read the Settlement document from NYAG. When it was my turn to speak - I first told the room that the status of the settlement is indeed unknown (even Louis Soloman NYAG office didn't know current status of the claims /payouts since being handled by the BBB Better Bus Bureau, and asked Mr Reale to STOP referring to the 1000 page Offering Plan document that was sent out to all of us AFTER the signing day for the timeshare (bait and switch). You can bet the microphone was taken from me then.LOL!

One owner asked Bluegreen if they will CHARGE a fee once they do manage the property to convert the Manhattan Club into their POINT based program. She said she knows of a case where they had done that, and wouldn't want to be asked for thousands to simply use the Manhattan Club , on top of already high maint fees! There was also some mention of how Bluegreen might handle the non paying members /past maintenance - Bad Debt totals approx 10 million. Some were upset this Bad Debt carries into the high maintenance today . (NOTE: They may contract to a third party Collector - not sure as they really couldn't comment about anything solid for the future.)

meeting was from approx 9:15 am to 11:30 am.

I have two weeks. They sent only one ballot. Sloppy management or sly? I wonder how many owners they did this to.

sueo,

your efforts at the BOD meeting are very much appreciated. however, the results of your unselfish attempts have left us owners with what we started with, i.e., NOTHING NEW, with the same "directors, '" Sal Reale and Joshua Wirshba (TMC Operations) answering in their usual bull****ing and arrogant fashion. i have spoken with sally many times and found him to be a fast talker who knows how to skirt issues with inane excuses and mumbo-jumbo leading nowhere. they all were well-trained by eichner who has a line that follows a ruler. the bottom line fact is that eichner and company should be dining with bernie madoff for fraud both in the form of bait/switch sales tacticts and for fraudulent use of the mail (a federal crime) to advertise the sale of units of TMC, which were proven by the former NYSAG, schneiderman (in his undercover investigations) who did such a horrendous job of litigation, leaving eichner and crew practically unscathed.

sueo, you deserve a big THANK YOU from all owners for your sincere efforts at the meeting. unfortunately, it seems we're back to square, circle, rectangle, your choice, NUMERO UNO, perhaps worse.

my personal merci to you.

chris

sueo79 wrote:

Jeff W - I will try and call you shortly for your Redweek post but I was in attendance at Board meeting. The same non sponsor Board people got voted in again - surprise surprise!) and the other 4 were NEW(sponsor seats) and they were from Bluegreen Corporation. Bluegreen (as we were told) has owned about 50 units since 2010, and in June gained another 100 (from where - not sure - perhaps Eichners own inventory??). So Bluegreen controls about 150 units.

.Eichner was NOT present - and from speaking to many owners that come every year - apparently he has never showed up. Note: the non sponsor board members indicated they send out email newsletters to all owners at least twice? a year - many in the room said they had never received anything. My advice - call TMC if you are an active owner, and make sure your current EMAIL is on this list and/or check your junk mail.

I would guestimate there was 100 or so mostly frustrated owners in the room. Most confusion was in regard to Bluegreen's involvment today versus what it will be in the future when they are allowed to 100% 'manage" the Manhattan Club and regarding the Settlement status . The current management company is still URBAN and will be for next 3 years per the settlement agreement. Almost every person asked a question or gave the Board a complaint - most of them saying the same thing! That is - there NEEDS to be a buy back program, heck even for a small fee to just dump it and be done! Median age in the room as 67 or so, and many of them cannot continue to pay the high fees, or they enjoyed the Club 10-15 years now and no longer have a use for it but cannot get rid of the burden. Many people asked Sal Reale and Joshua Wirshba (TMC Operations) about the settlement and they had no news, no updates, really did not seem to want to talk about it. Sal R referred everyone with questions to the OFFERING plan(said the "timeshare" clearly was NEVER intended to be an investment property as per Offering plan; , and Joshua referred everyone to read the Settlement document from NYAG. When it was my turn to speak - I first told the room that the status of the settlement is indeed unknown (even Louis Soloman NYAG office didn't know current status of the claims /payouts since being handled by the BBB Better Bus Bureau, and asked Mr Reale to STOP referring to the 1000 page Offering Plan document that was sent out to all of us AFTER the signing day for the timeshare (bait and switch). You can bet the microphone was taken from me then.LOL!

One owner asked Bluegreen if they will CHARGE a fee once they do manage the property to convert the Manhattan Club into their POINT based program. She said she knows of a case where they had done that, and wouldn't want to be asked for thousands to simply use the Manhattan Club , on top of already high maint fees! There was also some mention of how Bluegreen might handle the non paying members /past maintenance - Bad Debt totals approx 10 million. Some were upset this Bad Debt carries into the high maintenance today . (NOTE: They may contract to a third party Collector - not sure as they really couldn't comment about anything solid for the future.)

meeting was from approx 9:15 am to 11:30 am.

Thank you, Sueo 79, finally a report on the meeting. Was there any mention of how many owners are not up to date on maintenance ? Blue green has announced setting up a facility in nyc to supposedly sell TMC units. One has to wonder how they could hope to sell for the prices we paid 10 or 15 yrs ago with current high mtce fees. Obviously something has to give: either sale price will be much less than we paid or mtce fees have to be much lower than current fees. Annoying that no one seems to know the status of the payout from the AG agreement. 2nd payment from Eichner must be due about now. Has anyone in this blog received any $ from settlement.?

If the total is 10 million in bad debt due to unpaid maint - my bet is a few thousand owners

Surprise, surprise. Bluegreen may want to collect what will be owed them.

Sue079 thank you for taking the time to write such an informative synopsis of the meeting, on the forum. Sure appreciate it! You did mention Urban Management Co. is still in for the next 3 years? Isn't it 2 since we are already a year into the settlement phase?? I hate to say it but I wonder if we were/are better off with Urban than we will be with Bluegreen? The lesser of 2 evils?? But nothing we can do about that. Thank you again.

sueo79 wrote:

Jeff W - I will try and call you shortly for your Redweek post but I was in attendance at Board meeting. The same non sponsor Board people got voted in again - surprise surprise!) and the other 4 were NEW(sponsor seats) and they were from Bluegreen Corporation. Bluegreen (as we were told) has owned about 50 units since 2010, and in June gained another 100 (from where - not sure - perhaps Eichners own inventory??). So Bluegreen controls about 150 units.

.Eichner was NOT present - and from speaking to many owners that come every year - apparently he has never showed up. Note: the non sponsor board members indicated they send out email newsletters to all owners at least twice? a year - many in the room said they had never received anything. My advice - call TMC if you are an active owner, and make sure your current EMAIL is on this list and/or check your junk mail.

I would guestimate there was 100 or so mostly frustrated owners in the room. Most confusion was in regard to Bluegreen's involvment today versus what it will be in the future when they are allowed to 100% 'manage" the Manhattan Club and regarding the Settlement status . The current management company is still URBAN and will be for next 3 years per the settlement agreement. Almost every person asked a question or gave the Board a complaint - most of them saying the same thing! That is - there NEEDS to be a buy back program, heck even for a small fee to just dump it and be done! Median age in the room as 67 or so, and many of them cannot continue to pay the high fees, or they enjoyed the Club 10-15 years now and no longer have a use for it but cannot get rid of the burden. Many people asked Sal Reale and Joshua Wirshba (TMC Operations) about the settlement and they had no news, no updates, really did not seem to want to talk about it. Sal R referred everyone with questions to the OFFERING plan(said the "timeshare" clearly was NEVER intended to be an investment property as per Offering plan; , and Joshua referred everyone to read the Settlement document from NYAG. When it was my turn to speak - I first told the room that the status of the settlement is indeed unknown (even Louis Soloman NYAG office didn't know current status of the claims /payouts since being handled by the BBB Better Bus Bureau, and asked Mr Reale to STOP referring to the 1000 page Offering Plan document that was sent out to all of us AFTER the signing day for the timeshare (bait and switch). You can bet the microphone was taken from me then.LOL!

One owner asked Bluegreen if they will CHARGE a fee once they do manage the property to convert the Manhattan Club into their POINT based program. She said she knows of a case where they had done that, and wouldn't want to be asked for thousands to simply use the Manhattan Club , on top of already high maint fees! There was also some mention of how Bluegreen might handle the non paying members /past maintenance - Bad Debt totals approx 10 million. Some were upset this Bad Debt carries into the high maintenance today . (NOTE: They may contract to a third party Collector - not sure as they really couldn't comment about anything solid for the future.)

meeting was from approx 9:15 am to 11:30 am.

The money goes, or should go, to the association. This was in reply to the person who thought the delinquent funds, when retrieved, would go to the company that is taking over management. That money belongs to all the owners. Maybe in time assessments can be lowered?

laurah,

your quote: "Maybe in time assessments can be lowered?"............................THE ASSESSMENTS, I.E., MAINTENANCE FEES.....MUST.....BE LOWERED. that seems to the the main and most important reason owners want to GIVE AWAY what they paid so much for initially.

laurah136 wrote:

The money goes, or should go, to the association. This was in reply to the person who thought the delinquent funds, when retrieved, would go to the company that is taking over management. That money belongs to all the owners. Maybe in time assessments can be lowered?

I have always thought that when staying the three or four nights of the split week that there should be limited maid service. We can make our bed, hang up towels wash dishes in the dishwasher etc. The maids only need to take out the trash and replenish the amenities. If someone would like full maid service put on a charge of say $15 a day. This would save on laundry and personnel costs since not as many maids would be needed and would generate some extra income. Also I saw once an MS 13 guy taking change out of the soda machine on the floor I was on. Were does this money go? Shouldn't it go to reduce our expenses?

hello fellow TMC owners, the following is an email i wrote to the tmc board of directors and non-sponsored owners, like us. perhaps all of us owners should consider writing similar emails detailing our individual complaints to the entire TMC board of directors.

patricia, james, robert,

as owners and board members, how can you help all of us owners to get our maintenance fees reduced to affordable levels? if you haven't already done so, i invite you to check redweek.com under the manhattan club lawsuit forum. there you will find over 200 pages over more than a 4-year period. it's obviously all about TMC and the myriad complaints from owners which led to eichner's fine and court-ordered prohibition from running a timeshare operation. the crux of the majority of complaints from owners is all about the exorbitant maintenance fees. also bear in mind that at owners' original sales pitches, we were told to expect slight increases* in our maintenance fees from time-to-time. i purchased about 9-10 years ago: my maintenance fees have risen by over 400%. do you consider that percentage to be a promised "slight increases?"*...............and i'm obviously not the only one caught in this apparent web of deceit.

i feel confident that you will do all in your power as our trusted board members, to help all owners in getting some reasonable relief from this overwhelming financial burden of exponentially enormously increasing maintenance fees. your helpful and positive response to this appeal (and i assume i am speaking for all concerned owners at THE MANHATTAN CLUB) will certainly be appreciated as will your conscientious efforts in behalf of your fellow owners at TMC.

hi fellow owners,

here's another email i wrote to TMC BOD:

patti,

again, i direct yours and all other board members' , in addition to our new bluegreen management team's attention to the redweek.com website noting the manhattan club forum section. here you will note the hundreds of complaints (over 200 pages since the forum's inception) that led to ian bruce's eichner's losing the legal battle brought on by the former NYSAG, eric schneiderman.

patti, we owners need some positive action from people like you, bob and jim, as our representatives. with the exception of a possible new lawsuit, we have few if anyone to come to our assistance. a new lawsuit to me is a rather negative start to a new beginning with our new and hopefully favorable association with bluegreen, but that possibility will soon become a reality if our current problems aren't solved favorably for all involved.

thanks in advance for your help.

i look forward to noting positive information from you and our fellow board members/owners.

please email your hopefully positive response to me at your earliest convenience.

Hi, sueo79. Thank you so much for your meeting' update. In regard to Reserve for Bad Debt: Pursuant to 2019 TMC Annual Budget, it specifies that Bad Debts in the amount of $10,000,000 "represents a reserve for delinquent owners in the payment of their Timeshare Charges and Real Estate Taxes as of December 31, 2017 and a projection of additional delinquencies during 2018 and 2019".

That looks terrible, but plz no worries, TMC is not in trouble. Though the Bad Debt has grown from $1,000,000 since 2014, the MC INCOME has grown from $32,753 millions in 2014 to $38,132 millions in 2019. Almost 6 millions within 5 years!

EVERY YEAR the TMC receipts are adequate to meet the expenses of the TMC. Eichners continue to fill their pockets, the only losers are the TMC owners.

sueo79 wrote:

Jeff W - I will try and call you shortly for your Redweek post but I was in attendance at Board meeting. The same non sponsor Board people got voted in again - surprise surprise!) and the other 4 were NEW(sponsor seats) and they were from Bluegreen Corporation. Bluegreen (as we were told) has owned about 50 units since 2010, and in June gained another 100 (from where - not sure - perhaps Eichners own inventory??). So Bluegreen controls about 150 units.

.Eichner was NOT present - and from speaking to many owners that come every year - apparently he has never showed up. Note: the non sponsor board members indicated they send out email newsletters to all owners at least twice? a year - many in the room said they had never received anything. My advice - call TMC if you are an active owner, and make sure your current EMAIL is on this list and/or check your junk mail.

I would guestimate there was 100 or so mostly frustrated owners in the room. Most confusion was in regard to Bluegreen's involvment today versus what it will be in the future when they are allowed to 100% 'manage" the Manhattan Club and regarding the Settlement status . The current management company is still URBAN and will be for next 3 years per the settlement agreement. Almost every person asked a question or gave the Board a complaint - most of them saying the same thing! That is - there NEEDS to be a buy back program, heck even for a small fee to just dump it and be done! Median age in the room as 67 or so, and many of them cannot continue to pay the high fees, or they enjoyed the Club 10-15 years now and no longer have a use for it but cannot get rid of the burden. Many people asked Sal Reale and Joshua Wirshba (TMC Operations) about the settlement and they had no news, no updates, really did not seem to want to talk about it. Sal R referred everyone with questions to the OFFERING plan(said the "timeshare" clearly was NEVER intended to be an investment property as per Offering plan; , and Joshua referred everyone to read the Settlement document from NYAG. When it was my turn to speak - I first told the room that the status of the settlement is indeed unknown (even Louis Soloman NYAG office didn't know current status of the claims /payouts since being handled by the BBB Better Bus Bureau, and asked Mr Reale to STOP referring to the 1000 page Offering Plan document that was sent out to all of us AFTER the signing day for the timeshare (bait and switch). You can bet the microphone was taken from me then.LOL!

One owner asked Bluegreen if they will CHARGE a fee once they do manage the property to convert the Manhattan Club into their POINT based program. She said she knows of a case where they had done that, and wouldn't want to be asked for thousands to simply use the Manhattan Club , on top of already high maint fees! There was also some mention of how Bluegreen might handle the non paying members /past maintenance - Bad Debt totals approx 10 million. Some were upset this Bad Debt carries into the high maintenance today . (NOTE: They may contract to a third party Collector - not sure as they really couldn't comment about anything solid for the future.)

meeting was from approx 9:15 am to 11:30 am.