What will Diamond do to Bluegreen?

[Holly]

Jim can clarify, I'm sure...aren't BG ownerships all backed up by deeds? For example, my points are based from week 52 at Christmas mountain and week 28 at Solara Surfside...don't I always "own" those weeks at the end of the day? I have first dibs on reserving those weeks even before Premier Platinum or whatever don't I?

Originally Posted by rikkis_playpen

I have to admit I'm nervous, Jim... My concern and question is more to the effect of what legal rights do Bluegreen members really have- since the ownerships are not deeded but simply another form of trust. Will this give Diamond the ability to do virtually anything they want with the program? I would expect that BG members will have the right to choose if they join the Club, but..........

Can Diamond force a club conversion similar to the situation Epic owners faced- and if so would this practically eliminate resales and make the foreclosure process as simple as the punch of a button on a keyboard? I certainly hope not, but Mr. Spence can tell you the recent issues that current Club owners have been facing..

BlueGreen members have been blessed with a fairly steady resale value over the years. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

[Jya-Ning]

Originally Posted by Holly

Jim can clarify, I'm sure...aren't BG ownerships all backed up by deeds? For example, my points are based from week 52 at Christmas mountain and week 28 at Solara Surfside...don't I always "own" those weeks at the end of the day? I have first dibs on reserving those weeks even before Premier Platinum or whatever don't I?

Could be wrong, but I believe there are two different groups. One is the older BG owners. Who get week, and converted it to BG point. They do have their deed. The other is club that created by BG when they sell their points. They are more like WM where club owns all the deeds. So whoever manages the club or sit on club has duty to the member to make sure the inventory does not get pull out from the club.

Jya-Ning

[Carolinian]

The older BG resorts still have deeded weeks, which at least would prevent DRI from cherry picking valuable properties to close and sell like they did at their London resort after buying Sunterra. There may be newer resorts, however, without any deeded weeks.

[BocaBum99]

Originally Posted by rikkis_playpen

I have to admit I'm nervous, Jim... My concern and question is more to the effect of what legal rights do Bluegreen members really have- since the ownerships are not deeded but simply another form of trust. Will this give Diamond the ability to do virtually anything they want with the program? I would expect that BG members will have the right to choose if they join the Club, but..........

Can Diamond force a club conversion similar to the situation Epic owners faced- and if so would this practically eliminate resales and make the foreclosure process as simple as the punch of a button on a keyboard? I certainly hope not, but Mr. Spence can tell you the recent issues that current Club owners have been facing..

BlueGreen members have been blessed with a fairly steady resale value over the years. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

This is where Bluegreen owners are in luck. Bluegreen is a timeshare plan that is registered with the State of Florida under it's Multi-site timesharing plan statutes. As part of those statutes, all of the rules governing the ownership must be registered with the state of Florida. And, any bylaw changes must be submitted on an annual basis.

The Bluegreen Vacation Club is based on underlying deeded weeks that are placed in a Vacation Club trust. Owners have what are called Owner Beneficiary Rights under that plan according to a set of reservation rules and point values. Those rules cannot just be changed on a whim. And, the underlying deeded weeks must be redeeded into another trust if they want to make changes. So, a sales effort must be employed to change the ownership significantly.

Bluegreen does have a provision where they are in control of the board. But, if they try to do something like dramatically change the nature of the Club, I am sure that the Florida Attorney General would get involved. It is not likely that DRI would want that fight. They would probably try to change things slowly over time and provide the sales team with the opportunity to upgrade customers to the larger Club.

After thinking through the likely scenarios, I am not really worried too much about what DRI will do. They will do what is in their best interests. As long as we know what that is, we can find the ways to capitalize on the new opportunities that manifest themselves. There will be nice new loopholes for getting into the resorts which will be fun to learn about.

Jim

[BocaBum99]

Originally Posted by Carolinian

The older BG resorts still have deeded weeks, which at least would prevent DRI from cherry picking valuable properties to close and sell like they did at their London resort after buying Sunterra. There may be newer resorts, however, without any deeded weeks.

They can't cherry pick and resell underlying deeded weeks from Bluegreen. They are owned by the current owners who have fundamental rights based on those deeds such as the priority week. Points are deeded that way.

They would have to buy up the deeds and then redeed them in a different way. I don't think they would do it since they are a point company.

[BocaBum99]

Originally Posted by Jya-Ning

Could be wrong, but I believe there are two different groups. One is the older BG owners. Who get week, and converted it to BG point. They do have their deed. The other is club that created by BG when they sell their points. They are more like WM where club owns all the deeds. So whoever manages the club or sit on club has duty to the member to make sure the inventory does not get pull out from the club.

Jya-Ning

This is incorrect. ALL Bluegreen Points are based on an underlying deeded week and unit number. It is NOTHING like WorldMark. If anything, it is more like Fairfield with the exception that the deeds are held in trust instead of directly by the owners. But, owners have fundamental owner beneficiary rights based on those exact deeds, so owners don't own points that are disbodied from the underlying deeds.

In essence, owners own a fixed week that turns into points for use according to the BVC reservation rules if they don't exercise their right to use that fixed week.

Bluegreen does have control of the BVC board. So, they can change the reservation rules slightly, but not radically without severely disrupting the Club.

To change this fundamental principle for how the Club operates would not work without a major disruption in operations (i.e. hundreds of thousands of customer service calls). They would never try to do it. The Club would grind to a halt.

Far more likely is that DRI will do what Wyndham did to Fairfield and WorldMark. Keep the Club separate, but start consolidating operations and systems for both Clubs to get synergy in cost. And, each Club would get access to the other through developer only benefits. This is way easier to do than start over.

[tonyg]

If DRI were to BUY Bluegreen, they would basically be buying only what Bluegreen owns- the organization and any unsold or unowned property. The concern I would have is just what Bluegreen owns. I remember ASC selling off the ski slopes at their timeshares- which may have diluted the perceived value of the timeshares and come as a rather unpleasant surprise to owners.

[timeos2]

Originally Posted by BocaBum99

This is incorrect. ALL Bluegreen Points are based on an underlying deeded week and unit number. It is NOTHING like WorldMark. If anything, it is more like Fairfield with the exception that the deeds are held in trust instead of directly by the owners. But, owners have fundamental owner beneficiary rights based on those exact deeds, so owners don't own points that are disbodied from the underlying deeds.

In essence, owners own a fixed week that turns into points for use according to the BVC reservation rules if they don't exercise their right to use that fixed week.

Bluegreen does have control of the BVC board. So, they can change the reservation rules slightly, but not radically without severely disrupting the Club.

To change this fundamental principle for how the Club operates would not work without a major disruption in operations (i.e. hundreds of thousands of customer service calls). They would never try to do it. The Club would grind to a halt.

Far more likely is that DRI will do what Wyndham did to Fairfield and WorldMark. Keep the Club separate, but start consolidating operations and systems for both Clubs to get synergy in cost. And, each Club would get access to the other through developer only benefits. This is way easier to do than start over.

That basically describes the operation of THE CLUB for DRI - at least the trust version (there is at least one other). As you can see from some of the other posts regarding DRI they run that system as their own little playground from what I've seen. With DRI holding control of the Board and basically telling the Trustee what to do they answer to no owner (who can be booted for "missing" a $74 payment). Don't assume a Trust hold much protection unless you - not the trust - hold the deeds for those underlying weeks.

[BocaBum99]

Originally Posted by timeos2

That basically describes the operation of THE CLUB for DRI - at least the trust version (there is at least one other). As you can see from some of the other posts regarding DRI they run that system as their own little playground from what I've seen. With DRI holding control of the Board and basically telling the Trustee what to do they answer to no owner (who can be booted for "missing" a $74 payment). Don't assume a Trust hold much protection unless you - not the trust - holds the deeds for those underlying weeks.

Sure, a trust makes it easier to foreclose. That is true. But, in any foreclosure situation, there still must be due process. Otherwise, a simple complaint to the Florida Real Estate Commission will result in a hearing and widespread complaints results in sanctions and policy changes. I haven't read the entire thread regarding that case, but, I'll bet there is more than meets the eye. Probably just poor execution on DRI rather than a proactive intent to immediately foreclose on anyone late more than a day on any payment.

Moreover, the foreclosure process could help the Club more than hurt it. Since there are always dead beat owners, making it easy to foreclose could be a benefit to the Club rather than a hindrance. I would withhold judgement until I saw more facts.

Lastly, if you own the deed and DRI owns the HOA, they can still charge you a special assessment whether or not the deeds are in trust. There are lots of things a resort developer can do to make your lives miserable if they want.
Any HOA can whether its independent or controlled by a resort developer. Focusing on one item like the ease of the foreclosure process to declare that deeded weeks are better than deeds held in trust is a red herring and trivial point. Ownerships are still governed by Florida Real Estate Statutes.

[mace]

I like what DRI has done, since they acquired Sunterra, the resorts options have increased significantly (some Raintree, possibly BG) and the quality of the older resorts have been improved as well. I've been to BG resorts and I would say that I believe Diamond resorts on the whole are a bit more upscale, exceptions do exist. However the resort locations of the BG resorts offer quite a bit of value to DRI. I for one thought of purchasing into the BG system just for the ability to travel to nearby Eastern U.S. locations for short vacations. Do the math Diamond Resorts even with the increased MFs can provide at the moment the best value in Timeshares although if you own trash weeks of course this is not true. I've either traveled myself or given away vacations this year totaling between 8 and 9 weeks mostly in 2 bedrooms, I've rented the rest of my points to cover my MFs in full, thats value.
It may be pointed out that it's limited time at some locations and this is certainly true, but at 10 months out time is available at most of the resorts around 85% in my limited experience.