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Re: Manhattan Club Lawsuit (by Sue O.):
NEW REPLY from ATTORNEY: please read!
A recent post suggested that TMC timeshare owners engage in an “en masse” refusal to pay maintenance fees and avoid committing to a lawsuit. However, this may not provide a viable exit strategy because any prospective successor to the Eichners as Sponsor, e.g., BlueGreen, may well sue all owners who are delinquent in paying their maintenance fees, or at least begin collections. Failure to pay maintenance fees may adversely affect your credit scores and/or your ability to claim a favorable tax event from your ownership of your TMC timeshare.
We are aware of various services that charge significant fees to extricate owners from their timeshare obligations. They do so for a good reason. Simply ignoring the obligation to pay maintenance fees will not make it go away, and AG Schneiderman’s settlement does nothing to relieve owners of such obligation. Further, few owners will actually see any money from the AG’s settlement, which leaves all owners liable for their timeshare maintenance fee commitments.
Our considered approach offers TMC timeshare owners an opportunity both to obtain monetary damages for the harm they have suffered, a likelihood of avoiding liability for maintenance fees and real estate taxes, and a return on investment by liquidation of TMC.
TMC is a significant asset, and the timeshare owners have a significant interest in that asset. Unfortunately, the actions of the Sponsor in paying itself significant management fees, charging unreasonable maintenance fees, earning significant revenue from aggregators they allow to sell TMC rooms online while claiming rooms are unavailable for timeshare owners, and failing to cooperate with those owners who seek to sell their timeshare interests, have rendered such ownership interests essentially worthless. We seek to rectify this unfair circumstance in which the only party benefitting from this valuable asset is the Sponsor.
We respect the decision of those owners who choose to simply stop paying maintenance fees, or to maintain their active membership, but believe that the definitive action with modest investment that we propose will produce a return on investment and vindication of rights for timeshare owners.
Jean-Marc Zimmerman
Zimmerman Law Group
233 Watchung Fork
Westfield, NJ 07090
jmz@tmcsuit.com