How could you fairly assess taxes on value of the units, as the owner and the county might have different ideas. Also, the value would be changing regularly (upwards, I hope), and I would not like our taxes to increase accordingly. However, I do agree, that taxes should be allocated according to the value of the weeks (as opposed to the value of the units), so that high season pays more than low season.

From Year 1 our tax assessor has kept track in the the Lee County court house of every unit changing hands.
One set of records for FGH and another for IJK.
I visited him several times when our system was set up for Hilton to pay the one and only total tax sum
for our Association, and then divide that total into units by the week for billing to the owners.
Hilton does all the tax work for our county tax by ratio, and its the weekly ratios I am asking for.
This is the base for Hiltons one time billing to each owner for taxes in December.


I will ask our web master to place the latest curve I made in 2007 for your evaluation on this site.

If I'm not mistaken, units in high season do pay more in taxes than those in low season. I'm not sure of the dfferential. On the matter of insurance however, I have a different opinion. Insurance covers our hard assests and that we all have and share equally. The only difference in "value" of the units is the time of year that we spend there. I use the unit no more enjoyably during my week than someone does in August. Actually, the AC bills are higher in August than in April and I pay that in an equal share. Often the AC is off the first of April and we just have the windows open. Things have a tendency to equal out for the most part I would hope. But the insurance coverage is to protect the building itself and the contents, all of which we use equally regardless of when you are there.

The Management Company (Mariner then) made an arrangement with our courthouse that saved the courthouse from having to mail out 3500 individual tax bills for each timeshare with tax proposals, then a month or two later the actual tax bills for collection of taxes each year. The management company had to mail bills out for maintenance fees to each and every owner anyway, so that was not a problem for the management company, but a large saving for the county.
I still have the print out that was given to me by Mariner, but it must be pretty outdated now.
Each board member had one to use for ommunications with the owners. (Back then)
The negative side for the owners was that the county also gave in to let the management company maintain the address lists, and soon after, the list became the property of the management company and the board (not for the owners as such) and became top secret to all owners. The Florida timeshare law was changed to include this fact by ARDA (Which many of you are supporting each year, it is the management companies lobbying arm, not specifically in the timeshares interest.)
The American Resort Development Association (ARDA) is the Washington D.C.-based professional association representing the vacation ownership and resort development industries. Established in 1969, ARDA today has nearly 1,000 corporate members ranging from privately held firms to publicly traded companies and international corporations with expertise in shared ownership interests in leisure real estate.
ARDA has supported some laws to make the industry tinker with allowing second home owners obtain tax benefits, which turned out to an assist to both Resort and Timeshare owners alike.

The owners ended up not knowing their neighbors, but a new way of dividing the taxes was established.
The court house keeps records of all sales of timeshare by week and unit number, and have been able to show averages by the week and unit both, that helped create a pricelist.
These averages where used to create percentiles into which the one and only county tax bill was divided for all owners to pay in 3500 parts according to their weekly averages of cost of the units.
This curve is the one I have asked Cris at the front office to let me study, as I have made one by myself after talking to our tax collector. That is soon a year ago, what is so sacred about it?
Since home insurance also is paid according to value, the same curve could be used to bill for insurance also.
Why should an inexpensive low season unit bare the same cost of a high season unit by paying the same taxes and insurance?
The off season would sell better if they were adjusted likewise. It would make a healthier financial year round value.
Our almost $500 hurricane damage bill was also unfair as all owners paid the same amount into the almost 1.5 million pool from FGH alone.
Remember we were not told of any payments from our Hilton insurance policy.
We also lost Millions by loosing our paid up Building and Refurbishing funds.
It should have been distributed like the taxes.
A fall unit week takes in 1/4 of what a in season week unit takes in for rental.

Food for thought, I do not wish to act as a socialist, just a Scandinavian type Democrat.
Balance the budget.

Carl, I have no qualms about a tax schedule based upon the difference in value of our weeks. My argument concerning insurance was that it's purpose wasn't to insure the "blue sky" that makes my April unit worth more than a week in August. August weeks bear the same liability risks and same property damage risks that I bear in April. In fact August weeks are more likely to incur property damage from storms than a high season week. I'm just saying that you can't possibly figure in all the risks involved with every season and then charge rates accordingly. Insurance covers pretty much the same thing for all of us, so I don't see the problem with paying that in equal shares. When our units were being repaired after the hurricane, we all suffered equal loss due to the property damage. It could be argued that I suffered more than someone who comes down in the summer or fall. Anyway, I have no problem with paying a bit more tax than a low season week, because the value of that week is determinined not only by the value of our physical property, but also by the desireability of being there in the early spring. I just don't think insurance falls into that same catagory. I don't pay more for cleaning, linens, maintenance, utilities, management fees or other such services because my week is worth more either. Nor should I. It's just part of the sharing situation we are all in.

What about looking at it this way:
A March owner couple has to pay $4,000 to get the week they lost the use of, but replaced somewhere else for at least the same $4,000.(same time of year).
An owner in September only lost $1,000 by not using the unit, and can replace the unit somewhere else for $1,000. It might be the same unit.
So one is insured for the $4000- and the other $1,000!
You insure against replacement value for your specific week.
That is why it was decided to pay taxes only against your value for that week you own, the unit is still the same, and air conditioning, sofa, chairs and cleaning cost the same all year round but is just part of your $4,000 or $1,000 vacation value.

Our Casa Ybel Timeshare was closed for almost one year, so we all suffered according to the value of the unit replacement rental for the particular time of the year you owned.
So insurance cost should be proportional to the replacement value of another rental for your particular week. We all had a loss, but different due to replacement cost differences.
Did I say it right? or repeat myself?
I understand your point, but think about the value the different time of year comes up with.
This is what timeshare is all about.

Bob is right, Carl. Our insurance policy is primarily to insure the buildings and contents, the loss of use is a very minor part of our coverage and only applies if you use the unit personally and not for rental purposes. If you carry your rental ualue theory further, then you should pay for more electricity in the summer because you are using the A/C more, summer costs are higher to water grass and tress and pest control is higher. If you think you are getting cheated on your July 4 week, buy a couple of weeks in March and take advantage of the summer folk.

I do not feel cheated at any price; that was not my point.
I just feel you act with a different capacity owning a $50,000 unit that has its very high “real value” due to the fact it truly represents the price.
High season justifies high prices.
The demand is very high for a beach property in spring time, people get to get away from the frost up North

An off season unit however costing between $5,000 and $10,000 can't justify a higher price than that. It sells as a vacation spot, school is out, it is as hot on Sanibel as it is at home, and you want to enjoy a beach. And that is all its worth.
The actual "school out" shoulder season is still on the higher side, like "an Indian summer" up North, coming back to life.
It creates a secondary peak in July-August before the hurricane season really drops the value due to the fact you might not have your unit available, not due to a direct hit like Charley, but hurricanes draw a constant scare in the late fall till Thanksgiving.
So the value changes constantly with the calendar.
We need to sell the cheaper units and keep those owners to hold on; they support the total time share idea.
We need them to keep the Resort in shape in off season.
We would loose a lot if we closed the Resort down during low season, the high season expenses would be much higher if we did not have the support from the low season owners.
But why should a low season owner loose his complete value of a rental at $500 to insurance when a high season $50,000 unit with a $3,500 income in rental only has to pay the same $500 for insurance?
When you talk investment value you have to realize that the timeshare expenses has gone through the roof, while the value has retreated.
I feel we are making things more and more complicated.
Our original offering of expenses during the development was easy to understand.
It was needed to understand the concept.
We have lost the visibility by lumping all expenses together hiding the details and made it almost impossible to verify our true expense.
We used to sit three days at the budget meeting discussing such details as --, what are we paying for hand soap, what is the best price for TV subscriptions, do telephones need to go up in price, and why not use our own cell phones?
We were told: so much for the pool, so much for needed cleaning supplies, so much for towels, so much for electricity and so much for water and sewer, so much for each telephone, so much for yard work, did you get the best price?
Today we have close to:
$100,000 to Orlando (what for?)
$200,000 to Hospitality (how was this arrived at?)
$200,000 for Hilton office work (How come, they have 20 Resorts in the area, (that is $4 Mill income all together? they had a staff of only 6 persons then)
It’s all lumped together with no visibility.
I hope the board will start do get more itemized this year and face individual costs, that's why lots of homework is needed by the board, are they doing any
homework now?. or just meet up without an agenda?
Ed McElroy did a lot of homework in his days; we helped each other dividing up the types of expenses for verification purposes and saved a lot each year in those days through lots of details.
Does a board member know what our cost is today for weekly soap, shampoo, paper towels and Kleenex? (Each unit’s bath room supplies for the week)
We had that down pat.
We also need to make some income for our association by handling rents and sales in house, all it takes is hiring a registered real-estate broker, and we could make millions on that.
If we hired a General Manager with a brokerage license we could do everything in house and place some improvements to the Resort.
Did I get too far out? There are no secrets, we could be running the place our selves.