Condo rules change with ownership

I was given a 2 week notice that my condo assoc ws requesting a full year of monthly fee's upfront. This has not been the usual. My fee was over $2000.00. Got the bill 14 days before Christmas requesting full payment by 1/12/11. Somehow my payment crossed in the mail with the letter they sent to the owners. We were told if the fee's were not paid in full,we would be denied entry to our units. Ontop of a penalty of $25.00 and 15% interest. I feel the new management hopes the owners walk away. My condo is paid in full and I feel like we are being pushed out. Is this legal?

royinec wrote:

I was given a 2 week notice that my condo assoc ws requesting a full year of monthly fee's upfront. This has not been the usual. My fee was over $2000.00. Got the bill 14 days before Christmas requesting full payment by 1/12/11. Somehow my payment crossed in the mail with the letter they sent to the owners. We were told if the fee's were not paid in full,we would be denied entry to our units. Ontop of a penalty of $25.00 and 15% interest. I feel the new management hopes the owners walk away. My condo is paid in full and I feel like we are being pushed out. Is this legal?

Most people pay maintenance fees by the year, not by the month .... with the economy like it is, many people are not paying maintenance fees period and their week will eventually go into foreclosure .... it depends on how important your week is to you as to whether or not you pay them all at once.

However, I would get in touch with the BOD or management and tell them how much of a hardship this new form of payment may ne on owners .... it seems to be a rather questionable move in this down economy.

I did talk with the BOD his excuse was that other homeowners were not paying their's. The condo fee was raised to $333.50 per week,I have 6 weeks, so you can see, it was a large amt of money to give upfront with a 2 week notice. They no longer rent for the homeowners. I feel like this thing may be going belly up. I hope to connect with other owners of the Neptune in Fort Myers Beach.

royinec wrote:

They no longer rent for the homeowners. I feel like this thing may be going belly up. I hope to connect with other owners of the Neptune in Fort Myers Beach.

Yes, what they are doing regarding billing is unquestionably legal. Billing frequency is not a matter specified within underlying "condo declaration" documents filed with the county (Lee County, in this case). It is customary and not the least bit unusual for timeshare owners to have to pay their maintenance fees annually, in full, BEFORE actual usage or occupancy of owned weeks. (Wyndham is one noteworthy exception, billing monthly). While your particular outfit may be initiating a billing POLICY change which is (understandably) unwelcome, they have every legal right to do so.

I'd be willing to bet that your intuition is absolutely correct here regarding this operation maybe being in financial trouble and perhaps currently "cash starved". The investors plan for this property purchase and conversion to timeshare was unfortunately launched just when the economy began to tank a few years ago. Their sales projections and goals have almost certainly NOT been achieved in the subsequent tough economic times and they may well now find themselves financially between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

I claim NO personal knowledge of their current financial status, but I can VERY easily believe that this operation may very well currently be in financial danger of going "belly up". If they have loan obligations they can't meet, all they can really do now is dig into their own pockets (highly unlikely), borrow more money (probably impossible) or squeeze existing owners to "pony up" some cash (unwelcome, but entirely lawful) to help them try to "stay afloat" for a while longer.

Please "don't shoot the messenger" here. I'm just offering some thoughts and observations based upon my own limited but direct personal knowledge of the background and history of this particular Fort Myers Beach facility and its' (maybe ill-fated) "reinvention".

Thanks for the info.