Dear Editor,
As a long-time timeshare owner (R.I. - 1985) on this beautiful island I have long been aware of the troubles that many of us have had with their ownership teams exceeding the terms of the contracts that owners have agreed to (Not mine!). These usually result in excessive fees tacked on to the annual maintenance fees payable by owners to resorts that have clearly not used the monies received in the proper way.
With timeshare resorts going through ownership changes in order to stay in business, and at the same time failing to perform ‘promised’ maintenance with the fees that owners are contractually obligated to pay, it is the corporate ownership of these businesses that needs to be monitored and controlled with proper ‘timeshare’ legislation. Perhaps the bill(s) pending before the Government right now need to be re-titled as the ‘Contract Authority’ to manage these companies’ failures to abide by the agreements that they enter into with their unsuspecting clients.
To put the burden of the cost of government enforcement upon the people who have chosen to purchase a ‘piece of paradise’ with their timeshare investment is a warped view of what needs to be done. We ‘owners’ have bought into the timeshare experience and have faithfully paid our agreed-upon fees and thus have the right to expect all terms to be followed by the corporations that have taken our monies. This is the problem with timeshare-living in SXM now. The task for the government is to manage the outrageous behaviour of the resort owners, not the thousands of tourist-owners who have lived up to their part without costing the government anything. Incidentally, timeshare owners have also paid their government taxes each year and perhaps this should be seen as having already paid for the upcoming legislation many times over.
I urge the elected officials who will be enacting this legislation to think about what the ‘timeshare legislation’ needs to accomplish. Is it to impose further insult to the past and future guaranteed tourist visitors that the timeshare industry brings to the island, or is it to monitor and ensure that those same tourists are not taken advantage of when they make their investments in St. Maarten?
Jim Giner
Voorheesville, New York
