Smugglers’ Notch Homeowners’ Association, Inc.
April 1, 2011
Fellow Homeowners:
You all received Mr. Stritzler’s e-mail, (sent to everyone before the court’s opinion had even been formally sent the attorneys), regarding the anti- trust issue. As we explained so many times, the anti-trust matter, while important, is only a small part of the significant overall issue presently facing our homeowner constituents. Specifically, as we have shown you over the past year, the resort has, and continues to, bill homeowners for a totally unsubstantiated percentage of services as well as fails to provide documentary support for the items it is asking us to pay for. In addition, the resort has completely ignored homeowners’ expressed directions for the resort not to withdraw contested fees from your rental income. As a result, we have filed a complaint with the Vermont Attorney General’s office. We have now received a preliminary report from the AG that our complaint has been accepted. According to the AG’s procedure the resort will receive a notice from AG’s office to contact us within seven days to resolve the problem. We will then respond back to the AG in 14 days to report status of any resolution. If resolution is not satisfactory to SNHA, the AG will review the response from the resort and determine what role the AG has to play, if any, in the resolution of this significant problem.
On the issue of our tax appeal, as we communicated to you previously, Hans Huessy, a Vermont real estate attorney has been retained on behalf of all homeowners in good standing with SNHA. Mr. Huessy will review the tax assessed values of our homes as they relate to current market values in order to determine if a case for grieving the tax assessments is valid. As of this date, sample appraisals have been performed on 8 homes within the resort. This will allow Mr. Huessy to get a good picture of the current values within the resort as they compare to market value in the Jeffersonville area as well as those values in other comparable resorts. Mr. Huessy will report back to us within the next few weeks to discuss his opinions. At that time, if the findings warrant an appeal, and if you are interested in an appeal for your property, you as an individual SNHA member will have the opportunity to make arrangements to file an appeal through Mr. Huessy. Contact joe@snha.net At this time 87 full ownership homeowners have indicated an interest.
The SNHA office staff is finalizing budgets for Regimes and has just completed renewal of the SNHA Master Policy Insurance for 2011-12. They will be sending out invoices soon for Regime assessments, Insurance, and SNHA dues. The insurance loss record for 2010 continues to show improvement from past years and so premiums are stable for 2011-12. SNHA continues to work closely with individual homeowners and Regime Directors to institute measures to reduce risks and control losses. The Board has set dues at $750 per home for 2011. This increase from $685 is to cover delinquent accounts from homeowners who have not paid their 2010 obligations. The Board is very concerned that some homeowners are continuing to benefit from the services provided directly to their Regimes are not paying their share of SNHA operations and yet are still benefiting from SNHA’s management of their Regime properties, plans, insurance, maintenance projects for common areas, financing, collections, etc… . A list of homeowners who have delinquent accounts will be distributed with the account statements.
Finally, it is that time of year again when we are planning our annual homeowners’ meeting. The time and place of the meeting will be sent shortly. This year’s meeting is expected to be one of the most important in years, and we ask all homeowners who can possible attend to please do so. Many issues will be discussed and decided, and you will undoubtedly have many questions which we will be prepared to answer.
In the meantime, we will keep you advised as to all developments.
SNHA Board
