Casualty (3)

Casualty (3)

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing out of desperation, pleading for assistance from anybody who will listen. Somebody needs to help defend Fairmont timeshare lease-holders and speak out, because apparent loopholes in the Canadian courts and legal system have enabled a big timeshare-vacation corporation to victimize over a thousand innocent Canadian consumers. Mostly vulnerable seniors are being forced into bankruptcy, having to cash in retirement funds, or put new or second mortgages on their homes. Something must be done - not only does this impasse affect these timeshare holders, but it affects timeshare holders and all consumers across Canada.

Unfortunately, I am not well-versed in all the details of the Northmont/Sunchaser Villa saga that has unfolded over the past few years. I am the daughter of a Sunchaser Timeshare Vacation Lessee, and only learned about some of the details of the ongoing dispute when my 80-year old mother - the holder of the said timeshare - had a stroke in 2016, and I had to take over tending to her business affairs as her acting Power of Attorney. Unfortunately, the stroke affected her language capacity, and she has been unable to explain to me all the developments that have taken place between 2010 and present.

What I have come to understand, however, through long hours of research, was that my senior mother had purchased a timeshare lease around 2000, in the hopes that our family could vacation together and build many happy memories as a family. She was promised when she signed onto her contract, and paid ~$12,000, that she had the rights to ‘stay and play’ with friends and family at the beautiful Fairmont Properties for one week every other year for 40 years. She delightfully put my brother’s and my names on the contract, as she was told that the ‘advance vacation purchase’ could be inherited by family members and carried-on until the 40-year lease was up. As part of the deal, she paid yearly maintenance fees for regular operating costs and upkeep of the resort (cleaning services, cosmetic changes, etc).

Thanks to the family gift purchased by my mother, we did enjoy some happy times together at the resort over the next decade. Christmases, an exchange vacation in Hawaii, laughter with grandchildren, and couples’ getaways were the privileges purchased with the timeshare lease. Then the Timeshare Company/Lessor, Fairmont Properties, went into receivership, and those times sadly ended. A new company took over - Northmont Resort Properties - who decided that major renovations must be completed on the buildings, and in order to fund it, the newly-named Sunchaser Villa Lessees must shoulder the cost. Disputes ensued, and vacationers were essentially locked out if they disagreed with the billed costs of the capital renovation.

Northmont argued in court that the Sunchaser Lessees (vacation holders) were not just paying for time used, but were actually co-owners of the property - owners of so-called “Vacation Interval Agreements - and therefore must pay collectively for the upgrades (astoundingly, even though they had no equity interest in the real estate holdings, and certainly no title to the property!).

Unfortunately, to make matters worse, many Sunchaser holders (1200+), including my mother, had banded together in what they thought was a concerted effort and collective class action against the bully Northmont, but received seemingly inept legal representation, who bungled the defense, did not bring forward even the most basic of arguments like Canadian Consumer Protection Laws, and even ‘abused court process’ and acted ‘vexatiously’ according to Judges’ comments. The contracts were clearly violated and the language therein creatively re-interpreted, but the Canadian courts sided with the Northmont vacation property owners based on vague and duplicitous contract language, and ruled against the so-called ‘delinquent’ timeshare holders.

The Lessees’ Counsel, Geldert Law, and Northmont Properties were instructed to negotiate an Agreement of Quantum (interest and costs) and return back to court for final judgement. Incredulously, Geldert Law seemingly caved in and agreed to all of Northmont’s demands, unfairly committing leaseholders to not only pay thousands of dollars for the said renovation costs, but also all the years of maintenance costs in which they were locked out of the resort during the years when they were exercising their legally-protected rights to be heard in court, plus ludicrous 27% compounded interest on the unpaid fees, plus court and legal costs - and to add insult to injury - thousands of dollars for an exit fee to forfeit the unused years of the remainder of their lease (in my mother’s case 30 years of pre-paid rights to vacation). And they were committed to this without even being able to review the terms of the Agreement!

Now my mother is terminally ill with bone cancer, requiring extensive nursing care for the remainder of her days, and she is being charged by the courts to pay $25,000 - and up to $50,000 if she doesn’t come up with the cash by the very tight deadline - of her meagre retirement savings to simply walk away from her timeshare, which originally cost her in the vicinity of $12,000. She walks away with nothing while Northmont dances away with millions of dollars of court awards PLUS the entire asset of Sunchaser Villas to resell again as they wish. 
 

How can Canadian law fail consumers this way? How can they allow Big Business to take advantage of trusting seniors who just wanted to purchase a vacation plan and enjoy time with their loved ones?

Now, if my mother cannot submit and pay for what equates to financial rape, my brother and I - and our families - will be saddled with a onerous debt that we never vouched for. I personally am severely disabled (quadriplegic), am unemployed, and my brother is caught up in the very same fiasco as a timeshare holder himself.

Please somebody help us! All of Canadians’ privileges and access to timeshare vacations is on the line, and their rights to basic Consumer Protections as well.

Signed,

Desperate in Alberta

 

 The information contained in this blog/video is accurate to the best of my knowledge at the time of posting. I reserve the right to make changes as new information becomes available.

Any and all  information I share is for informational purposes only, not legal advice, as I am not a lawyer, just a lay person sharing information.