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Bel Air Vacation Club (by Lester W.):

I think that Bel Air may have intended for this debacle to happen. I think that their strategy was to gouge the timeshare owners, expect that many would pay, although some would default or simply not go along. They then could convert more of their facilities to hotel, while funding some of the conversion and hotel improvements with the money gained by timeshare owners who paid.

If you read some of the timeshare owner reports, the resort has been treating the timeshare owners like crap, charging them more for staying at the resort than hotel guests, and at the same time, treating the hotel guests much better. This seems to indicate that they would like the timeshare owners to go away, after, of course, gouging them first.

I read on Yelp that the resort has closed, but that is very much unofficial and maybe solely due to the local rules associated with the pandemic. I suspect, though, that the pandemic has hurt their plans and they will need the money to just survive. All those folks who paid this special assessment will be stuck with the same crappy resort which still needs renovation. Although the irony of this is that the pandemic IS an unforeseen circumstance.

The foolishness of their ways is that if they waited a year, they likely could have made the argument that they need the money for an unforeseen circumstance - the pandemic - they played their hand so poorly, but either way, the resort is unlikely to be improved.