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Manhattan Club Lawsuit
RESPONDENTS’ SUPPLEMENTAL MEMORANDUM REGARDING APPLICABLE STANDARD OF LAW FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION UNDER THE MARTIN ACT
Filed by TMC in AG v. TMC
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentDisplayServlet?documentId=ZYn3xkBI/sx4whx_PLUS_S39_PLUS_hw==&system=prod
Tony A.
I am in a similar financial situation Our unit is totally paid for years ago.I have asked them to take back I don't want any money They have refused my request I have had it listed with various timeshare listing agents for about 6 years No one will buy this Albatros As to their attorneys saying they have people interested in buying ,please sent them to me I will GIVE them mine it is a fixed New Year week
Patricia D.
Not sure if this is feasible for you but you might try trading it for a place you might want to go each year. We were successful in doing that in Mexico where we only pay fee if we decide to go a particular year and fee is much, much less. Just a thought..
patriciad250 wrote:I am in a similar financial situation Our unit is totally paid for years ago.I have asked them to take back I don't want any money They have refused my request I have had it listed with various timeshare listing agents for about 6 years No one will buy this Albatros As to their attorneys saying they have people interested in buying ,please sent them to me I will GIVE them mine it is a fixed New Year week
Cookie L.
Either way is not feasible, if you trade thru RCI you still has to pay your maintenance fees to the MC. How long can you do that if the fees keep going up at 10 to 15% a year; it might go up higher if more members stop paying . RCI is also NOT a great deal. I have 5 weeks banked and I have tried to book places. All I keep doing is paying them a fee to extend the expiration date.
David H.
Davidh,
I'm in the same situation with RCI I have two weeks (combined into points now) I'm lucky if I can get a week out of them. I 've had request for Maine and south or west coast Florida. I've waited 2 years twice for Florida and Maine never became available. I pay for extensions to keep points and vacation banked. I get frustrated with them as well. Money, money, money.
Vanessa S.
Two Manhattan Club timeshare owners said they could not find any record of their purchase at TMC in the New York State Real Estate Database, ACRIS.
Any TMC timeshare owner who cannot find their registered deed and documents in the NY State ACRIS records should write to the New York Attorney General immediately. The Manhattan Club may be more of a criminal operation than any of us imagined.
Write to Serwat Farooq letting her know you paid for your timeshare and did not received any of the proper documentation or recording of your ownership.
You are able to check your NYC Registration documentation by Party Name (your name) information on site - It also helps if you know your block and lot number. The block and lot number should be listed somewhere in your closing documents.
ACRIS Document Search https://a836-acris.nyc.gov/DS/DocumentSearch/PartyName
Here is the contact info:
Atty. Serwat Farooq, Asst. Attorney General
New York Attorney General’s Office
Re: The Manhattan Club Investigation
120 Broadway, 23rd Floor
New York, NY 10271
Double check ACRIS before you write that letter to the NY AG.
Reminder to all the owners: you are able to check your NYC timeshare ownership Registration documentation by Party Name (your name) information on site - Check using your block and lot number also.
ACRIS Document Search https://a836-acris.nyc.gov/DS/DocumentSearch/PartyName
Irene Smalls
Irene S.
March 31 filing in Manhattan Club court case includes complete transcript of March 11 hearing. Very educational reading. Highly recommended for all owners to update themselves on what is really happening in the AG's case. While it is not clear from the transcript who is actually "winning" the debate, two things are clear: The AG intends to file a "complaint" after deposing the Eichners and Scott Lager; also, the issue of overselling may be off the table. Eichner's attorney said in open court that the AG had dropped that part of the investigation, and the AG did not rebut the claim. In any case, many other revealing statements appear in the transcript. Read it and comment on it in this forum.
Jeffrey W.
Last edited by kyliec on Apr 04, 2016 11:08 AM
We should thank Jeff for providing the link to the court transcript. I read it and have the following comments.
The whole timeshare arrangement is a convoluted mess that offers any explanation possible re who is at fault in a “he said-she said” argument. For example, the defendants maintain that most of the owners love their shares and are not complaining. Owners have lost all court cases to date on technicalities and the defendant’s attorneys are again arguing many technicalities re the current complaint. The only good thing about this case is that it is still going on and it was not dropped on day 1.
At this point it is unclear how far the case has progressed. It appears that the last 2 years have largely been ‘discovery’ and actual arguments may not have been developed in front of the judge. The AG is trying to depose the defendants who are playing hard to get but once that is done the record seems to indicate the case is ‘completed’. However, it also seems to me that the judge does not have much of a grasp of the case so far e.g. she has not seen the offering plan- and if she reads it then ‘which version’.
If we assume from this record that the case is nearly over then I do not see that there is a ‘slam dunk’ for the AG because the Judge does not seem to be deeply invested in the process. She may interpret the current situation such that owners who protest by not paying their fees are the real source of the problem and should be punished rather than “string up Eichner et al.” Indeed, to the uninitiated, the only way the Judge can understand our situation is to buy a share herself and try to get a room. Explaining in court how screwed up the process is may be too complicated.
Those owners who have gone to the shareholders meetings, tried to sell their shares, and complained about fees etc. all know that the major response made by management is that “it is all in the prospectus” (in retrospect- if you buy a house the mortgage is 5-10 pages, the fact that buying a share of the MC requires one to read and understand a giant prospectus should have told us something before we were foolish enough to get involved). If the AG’s case is going to break this cycle then the AG will have to make an obvious case that convicts them on some gross violation e.g. ‘lying salesmen’ or ‘Urban management was grossly a scam’-it must be obvious to this Judge. That the AG can do this was not obvious to me in this transcript.
Gerald C.
Your points are well taken. At the March 11, 2016 hearing the Judge seemed to be siding with the Eichners. But the NY AG's staff was persuasive in their counter points. What is clear is the NY AG is not working for us. The AG is concerned about TMC violating NYS Real estate laws. The issue about the 89th amendment was disappointing. The TMC lawyers and the AG argued about what the 89th amendment said but at no point did the NY AG mentioned the 89th amendment was not given to any TMC owners and had not been approved by the NYS Real Estate Dept in charge of timeshares. The Judge was given the 89th amendment of the Offering Plan to read!
Two TMC owners are reporting mortgages listed by the Manhattan Club on NYC ACRIS records when the owners never had mortgages on their TMC timeshare property.
Any TMC owner who had a mortgage recorded by The Manhattan Club on official New York State Real Estate Records (ACRIS) and who did not take out a mortgage on their TMC timeshare should report that information in a letter to the New York Attorney General.
Atty. Serwat Farooq New York Attorney General’s Office Asst. Attorney General 120 Broadway, 23rd Floor New York, NY 10271
Irene S.
Hi Irene,
Thank you for all the information you have provided us. My husband and I have owned TMC timeshare since 1997. At the time we purchased the timeshare we did not without obtain a mortgage. However, we did receive paperwork on the mortgage terms and rate on the assumption that we did obtain a mortgage, with our closing statements. How can we find out whether TMC had recorded a mortgage on the official NYS Real Estate Record (ACRIS) on our timeshare?
Vivien S.
Gerards,
At the March 11, 2016 the NY AG said they have additional information on the Manhattan Club they were not yet prepared to bring before the court. The NY AG indicated there is more to their case against The Manhattan Club. Their is more to come. Only this phase of the case might be ending once they get the testimony of the Eichners and Scott Lager.
Irene Smalls
Irene S.
Thank you all for the insight you have provided here. My husband and I have been frustrated and quite upset with the Manhattan Club pretty much since we purchase a Jr. Biennial Suite in 1997. I am going to write to the judge and the AG attorney today to set out our story. Aside from always having to jump hurdles to get a reservation, MC tried to change our time share from running a full a calendar year, to running from August to August without prior notice, except to say that we would not be able to use our time after August of 1999 to the end of 1999. I wrote a very strong letter and they did reconsider but it is this type of nonsense that has made us angry and our ownership experience not at all what we have experienced with other timeshare holdings that we have. There was also the time we reserved 9 months in advance only to be given a suite the size of a closet, literally. I called the desk and was told there was nothing else available. Really? I threatened to go down to the lobby and make a scene. And I did. But before I could really get going, a manager appeared and suddenly another suite became available. It's just not worth this aggravation. There is another significant issue that I plan to advise the AG and the judge about, but I think it best to keep that private for the time being since I do not know if the MC people are following this forum. I'll let you know if I hear anything from the AG or the judge.
Fran P.
HOW TO USE ACRIS ACRIS is a wonderfully useful website that allows users to obtain valuable information about properties in the 5 boros (information is quite limited for Staten Island however), including copies of various documents, including deeds and mortgages. The site is absolutely free and you don't even have to register. Also, you don't even need any specialized or advanced computer knowledge to operate the site and it is fairly straightforward and easy to navigate. By the way, "ACRIS" stands for the Automated City Register Information System.
One more note before we proceed. ACRIS contains a recitation of only recorded documents. These are documents that have been recorded by the county clerk and are now a public record. In the past, if you wanted to access this information, you would need to visit the County Clerk's office and stand in line and waste a day. Now you can access this information from home any time you want. The ACRIS website only covers documents dating back to 1966, so if you want older documents, you must still visit the County Clerk.
Unrecorded documents cannot be found on ACRIS. Thus, if you purchased a house recently and want to get a copy of your deed (the title, it won't appear on ACRIS until the title company finally records it. It is a wonderful thing to be able to check regularly to make sure that the deed has been recorded. The same thing applies to a seller who recently paid off a mortgage. You can regularly check ACRIS to make sure that the Satisfaction of Mortgage was recorded.
To check ACRIS, click on the link in the upper right hand corner, then proceed as follows:
Click "Begin using ACRIS";
At this point, you have a few options, however, the first one, "Search Property Records", is the most useful one. You should click on the 2nd one, "Find Addresses and Parcels", if you need to find the Block and Lot of a particular property.
If you don't need the block and lot, or if you already have it or have found it using the "Find Addresses and Parcels" option, then click on "Search Property Records".
You are then presented with a few choices and again the first two are the most useful ones.
If you want to search the history of a particular individual, including what he owns and what he owes, you can simply click "Party Name" and then conduct a search using someone's name. That search can be refined by date, type of document, boro, etc., so you can really narrow down what you are seeking and find it quickly.
If you want to search the history of a particular property, then click on "Parcel Identifier", and upon entering the boro, block and lot of the property, you will then be presented the history of the property from 1966 to the present.
Once you enter information you will get a list of various transactions and typically two choices, either "DET" or "IMG". "DET" stands for details and by clicking it, you can get a capsule summary of the document. By clicking "IMG", you can actually see the recorded document and even print a copy for yourself.
ACRIS is perhaps the single most essential tool that you have at your disposal prior to selling or purchasing property in NYC. While some people may worry about privacy considerations or the possibility of fraud, the advantages of having this much valuable information accessible at your fingertips far outweigh the downside. Additionally, it must be remembered that the documents you are searching are all public records which, as said, could have previously only been accessed by visiting the County Clerk's office. Making public records more public doesn't seem like such a horrible thing.
Irene S.
Thank you, Irene, for the information on ACRIS. I tried to access the website to do a search on our timeshare records. I followed your instructions and entered the property block and Lot number and the date we purchased our timeshare, but the search returns a no match. I then tried entering the reel and page numbers which were listed on our deed, the search still returned no match. Did I miss another step? I also noticed the reel number and page numbers listed on our deed was different from the reel and page numbers stamped on top of the deed. I did try entering both set of numbers but to no avail. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you.
Vivien S.
I JUST DID AN ACRIS SEARCH AND FOUND THAT I HAD A FICTITIOUS $17,894 MORTGAGE WITH THE MANHATTAN CLUB. I HAVE NEVER DEALT WITH ANY FINANCIAL MORTGAGE MATTERS WITH TMC EXCEPT FOR ALL-CASH TRANSACTIONS. TMC MADE AN ERROR (HA HA) OR IS LYING AND FALSIFYING INFORMATION........
I PRINTED AND SENT MY ACRIS REPORT TO JUSTICE RAKOWER JUST NOW. IF YOU ENCOUNTER A SIMILAR SITUATION, SEND IT TO JUDGE RAKOWER IMMEDIATELY, THIS WILL SURELY STRENGTHEN OUR LEGAL STANDING.
KEEP IN TOUCH.
CHRIS VOLPE
Chris V.