Manhattan Club Lawsuit

Jeff

Any idea of how the 'new management' will be decided or what the process would be.? In a bankruptcy, the judge would select the trustee to manage etc.

John

Thanks to each of you who have tried so to give us information as to this MC settlement-NancyH

Again, just for perspective, if the AG's office accepted a settlement offer of $6.5 million from Eichner, et al, and there are 18k+ owners of TMC shares, that is a max of $361.00 each. I personally paid $25k+ for my share in 2001 in addition to $2,500+ in annual maintenance fees for many years ... and have only been granted my requested days once! I certainly would have hoped for a settlement closer to $450 million.

$6.5 million likely represents about a year of legal fees for Eichner. A pittance of a settlement for the people. He should have been made to tender a substantial financial settlement for the crimes committed in addition to having to sell the MC building with the real estate proceeds going to we MC shareholders.

yes, i believe the nysag alluded to criminal acts committed by eichner. i assume these alleged allegations were overlooked by the court......or they simply weren't presented as crimes. that fact of itself is a pity............(read "crime.")

chris

charlesm548 wrote:

$6.5 million likely represents about a year of legal fees for Eichner. A pittance of a settlement for the people. He should have been made to tender a substantial financial settlement for the crimes committed in addition to having to sell the MC building with the real estate proceeds going to we MC shareholders.

Pls can anyone bottom line-what this settlement(?) means to each owner????Tx-NH

I would like to have some return on my investment with the Manhattan Club (I have owned since 2001) but just getting rid of it would be a bonus for me. We should be able to sell our timeeshare back to the company.

mariona17 wrote:

I would like to have some return on my investment with the Manhattan Club (I have owned since 2001) but just getting rid of it would be a bonus for me. We should be able to sell our timeeshare back to the company.

Again, if as part of the settlement the owners can't sell back their share then the settlement is pretty much a joke.

Are we even sure the settlement goes to the owners, or is it a fine to be paid to NYS?

to those of us who THANKED ANY PRINCIPAL in the so-called settlement of the manhattan club lawsuit, SAVE YOUR THANKS. the nysag was doing his job, most likely NOT for the direct benefit of owners. currently we're still in limbo. NOBODY KNOWS WHERE WE STAND; we still don't know how or if the settlement will affect us. save your THANKFUL APPRECIATION for an official leader or entity that will help make us financially whole again offering us remunerative options that we owners deserve.

i for one want to keep TMC as my timeshare; i want any unpaid maintenance fees forgiven (i obviously couldn't use facilities that i didn't pay for but which eichner was quite able to rent out as hotel space and continue adding to his fortune for doing so!) ; i want maintenance fees to return to the level we were promised at the fraudulent sales presentation, and i want to be able to get reasonable reservation time, and not have to decide 9 months out for booking, i will gratefully THANK ANY ENTITY WHICH WILL OFFER US THESE BENEFITS WHICH WE ALL DESERVE AFTER 3 LONG YEARS OF COMPLAINING AND OVERALL REACHING, OUT PRIMARILY VIA THIS FORUM, TO PEOPLE WHO COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT US AS TMC OWNERS ABOUT THE FINAL OUTCOME OF THESE LEGAL PROCEEDINGS..

people who should be THANKED FOR THEIR EFFORTS ON OWNERS' BEHALF OF OWERS are those like irene smalls, jeff weir, and unnamed others who worked above and beyond for us. (forgive me if i left anyone else's name out who did something concrete for us, but we all know who they are!)

so save up your THANKS for those who will now show and offer us owners concrete benefits as beneficiaries of this legal victory chalked up by the nysag. if mr schneiderman didn't initially hear from us (rightful) complainers (owners) at TMC in the first place , he wouldn;t have had a case to call a victory for himself.

THANKS AGAIN TO ALL WHO CURRENTLY DESERVE IT.

keep in touch.

chris.

I want to thank especially Chris, who kept us informed with a clear head, who has the right answer for the lawsuit . I can not agree more to the demands made by Chris, can fully underline every word. Thanks Chris for all YOU have done , and of course thanks to the rest of the group , who kept us informed. This is a tragic , unlawful, painful and expensive situation , but hopefully down the road there is a light at the end of the tunnel. - if " they " would have to pay you all for your time and efforts, it would be in the thousands. Brigitte

Thank you, Chris. I totally agree with the benefits you outlined. As for maintenance fees, NYC fees should be some of the lowest. At TMC there is NO swimming pool, spa tub to maintain. Those are amenities that are costly to maintain. TMC only has heating and AC to maintain, which can be costly, but that's it. With all the MF collected since opening, at minimum, furnishings should be of the highest quality...Sleep number beds, Sterns Foster mattresses for instance, various interior styles...mid century, contemporary, etc. to choose from. I would hope a member forum could be established where members have a voice on how we want our investment handled, run, updated, preserved, etc. With the amount of investors involved we MUST have a voice. Real Estate regulations in NYC are extremely complicated and strict, owners must be privy to the business...just WHERE our hard earned cash is going, how it is being used. Our dollars matter...hold tight to all paperwork. Real estate, especially in NYC, does NOT depreciate, especially In Manhattan. Though "small little gold mines", what we paid for HAS value. Hold steady and be patient. Time is money...values keep rising. I choose to believe "you get what you pay for". In TMC instance, values have at minimum tripled or quadrupled. Spreading hope!

chrisv126 wrote:

to those of us who THANKED ANY PRINCIPAL in the so-called settlement of the manhattan club lawsuit, SAVE YOUR THANKS. the nysag was doing his job, most likely NOT for the direct benefit of owners. currently we're still in limbo. NOBODY KNOWS WHERE WE STAND; we still don't know how or if the settlement will affect us. save your THANKFUL APPRECIATION for an official leader or entity that will help make us financially whole again offering us remunerative options that we owners deserve.

i for one want to keep TMC as my timeshare; i want any unpaid maintenance fees forgiven (i obviously couldn't use facilities that i didn't pay for but which eichner was quite able to rent out as hotel space and continue adding to his fortune for doing so!) ; i want maintenance fees to return to the level we were promised at the fraudulent sales presentation, and i want to be able to get reasonable reservation time, and not have to decide 9 months out for booking, i will gratefully THANK ANY ENTITY WHICH WILL OFFER US THESE BENEFITS WHICH WE ALL DESERVE AFTER 3 LONG YEARS OF COMPLAINING AND OVERALL REACHING, OUT PRIMARILY VIA THIS FORUM, TO PEOPLE WHO COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT US AS TMC OWNERS ABOUT THE FINAL OUTCOME OF THESE LEGAL PROCEEDINGS..

people who should be THANKED FOR THEIR EFFORTS ON OWNERS' BEHALF OF OWERS are those like irene smalls, jeff weir, and unnamed others who worked above and beyond for us. (forgive me if i left anyone else's name out who did something concrete for us, but we all know who they are!)

so save up your THANKS for those who will now show and offer us owners concrete benefits as beneficiaries of this legal victory chalked up by the nysag. if mr schneiderman didn't initially hear from us (rightful) complainers (owners) at TMC in the first place , he wouldn;t have had a case to call a victory for himself.

THANKS AGAIN TO ALL WHO CURRENTLY DESERVE IT.

keep in touch.

chris.

Chris, I couldn't agree with you more on ALL points. I am also in total agreement with your outline of what you want to come out of this entire mess we've all been in for years. I want to keep my TMC and I want my past due maintenance fees forgiven so that I can literally "start a new relationship with TMC" and at that point I can decide to either keep my timeshare or sell it. To think that we will all get our initial investment back is not reasonable. There simply isn't enough in the settlement to hope for such a thing. I simply want what I initially bought. I also want to thank Jeff, Irene, and all of you who have helped to make constructive comments on this site and keep us informed. My hope is that once all the dust settles, and we know for sure what we as owners will get from this nightmare, that we will each have freedom to stay in or get out of TMC. I'm sure of one thing though, now that the Eichners are out we will have more of a voice.

chrisv126 wrote:

to those of us who THANKED ANY PRINCIPAL in the so-called settlement of the manhattan club lawsuit, SAVE YOUR THANKS. the nysag was doing his job, most likely NOT for the direct benefit of owners. currently we're still in limbo. NOBODY KNOWS WHERE WE STAND; we still don't know how or if the settlement will affect us. save your THANKFUL APPRECIATION for an official leader or entity that will help make us financially whole again offering us remunerative options that we owners deserve.

i for one want to keep TMC as my timeshare; i want any unpaid maintenance fees forgiven (i obviously couldn't use facilities that i didn't pay for but which eichner was quite able to rent out as hotel space and continue adding to his fortune for doing so!) ; i want maintenance fees to return to the level we were promised at the fraudulent sales presentation, and i want to be able to get reasonable reservation time, and not have to decide 9 months out for booking, i will gratefully THANK ANY ENTITY WHICH WILL OFFER US THESE BENEFITS WHICH WE ALL DESERVE AFTER 3 LONG YEARS OF COMPLAINING AND OVERALL REACHING, OUT PRIMARILY VIA THIS FORUM, TO PEOPLE WHO COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT US AS TMC OWNERS ABOUT THE FINAL OUTCOME OF THESE LEGAL PROCEEDINGS..

people who should be THANKED FOR THEIR EFFORTS ON OWNERS' BEHALF OF OWERS are those like irene smalls, jeff weir, and unnamed others who worked above and beyond for us. (forgive me if i left anyone else's name out who did something concrete for us, but we all know who they are!)

so save up your THANKS for those who will now show and offer us owners concrete benefits as beneficiaries of this legal victory chalked up by the nysag. if mr schneiderman didn't initially hear from us (rightful) complainers (owners) at TMC in the first place , he wouldn;t have had a case to call a victory for himself.

THANKS AGAIN TO ALL WHO CURRENTLY DESERVE IT.

keep in touch.

chris.

I can't help but wonder who the brave souls will be that take on TMC? ( replace the Eichners) Would it be a wise business decision for any company? Please enlighten me.

With all due respect, why should anyone who hasn’t paid their maintenance fees have them forgiven? All the maintance costs were still the same and those of us who have been paying have picked up the slack for years for those who haven’t. If anyone deserves any type of credit it’s the paying owners.

anitab188 I'm in total agreement with you. In lieu of the facts, there're many on this forum who feel an entitlement to keep their timeshares because the owners/Etcher's were not upstanding (an understatement).

Many who stopped paying MF's, now wish for no retribution, even though they too broke their own contracts "because the "Etcher's did". The FACT IS some of us endured the hardship this has caused, PLUS had to pay even more, because of shareholders/owners who chose to stop paying their own contracted MF's.

And yes, while the management rented out 'hotel' rooms, SOMETHING I WAS SPECIFICALLY TOLD THEY WOULD NEVER DO (at the time of my purchases) I sincerely doubt that any of us could ever prove this totally covered the monies lost from delinquent shareholders.

hi anitab 188, your opinion is respected and understood, from the point of view that you offered, ie, " those of us who have been paying" ,,,maintenance fees..." have picked up the slack for years for those who haven’t". that's a reasonable supposition. on the other hand, in my comments, i specifically noted that if maintenance fees weren't paid by an owner, that owner couldn't use the MC FACILITIES.. eichner now used this extra GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY to pocket YOUR MAINTENANCE FEES and offer unpaid time to non-owners on booking.com any other travel website............THEREBY DOUBLE DIPPING (A TACTIC EXPECTED BY EICHNER.)

this is a rather delicate and difficult call; you have reasonable comments on offering credit to owners, but i also believe that my stance on this matter has merit as well.

we've all gone through enough financial strain (especially the exorbitant maintenance fees!) and lack of reservation time (or, at least, sustaining the "drama" of getting desired reservation time). so your comment, " If anyone deserves any type of credit it’s the paying owners" is noteworthy but ALL OF US DESERVE LARGE FINANCIAL AND OTHER LOSS CREDIT SUSTAINED BY A FRAUDULENT PERPETRATOR. i hope we all can maintain respect for each of our common (and some unique) situations regarding losses due to TMC OWNERSHIP.

happy times ahead.

keep in touch.

chris

anitab188 wrote:

With all due respect, why should anyone who hasn’t paid their maintenance fees have them forgiven? All the maintance costs were still the same and those of us who have been paying have picked up the slack for years for those who haven’t. If anyone deserves any type of credit it’s the paying owners.

Chris, very well said and very respectful of EVERY owner who has lost "something" in this nightmare. As I said previously, once the dust has settled hopefully we will all end up satisfied with the outcome.

chrisv126 wrote:

hi anitab 188, your opinion is respected and understood, from the point of view that you offered, ie, " those of us who have been paying" ,,,maintenance fees..." have picked up the slack for years for those who haven’t". that's a reasonable supposition. on the other hand, in my comments, i specifically noted that if maintenance fees weren't paid by an owner, that owner couldn't use the MC FACILITIES.. eichner now used this extra GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY to pocket YOUR MAINTENANCE FEES and offer unpaid time to non-owners on booking.com any other travel website............THEREBY DOUBLE DIPPING (A TACTIC EXPECTED BY EICHNER.)

this is a rather delicate and difficult call; you have reasonable comments on offering credit to owners, but i also believe that my stance on this matter has merit as well.

we've all gone through enough financial strain (especially the exorbitant maintenance fees!) and lack of reservation time (or, at least, sustaining the "drama" of getting desired reservation time). so your comment, " If anyone deserves any type of credit it’s the paying owners" is noteworthy but ALL OF US DESERVE LARGE FINANCIAL AND OTHER LOSS CREDIT SUSTAINED BY A FRAUDULENT PERPETRATOR. i hope we all can maintain respect for each of our common (and some unique) situations regarding losses due to TMC OWNERSHIP.

happy times ahead.

keep in touch.

chris

anitab188 wrote:

With all due respect, why should anyone who hasn’t paid their maintenance fees have them forgiven? All the maintance costs were still the same and those of us who have been paying have picked up the slack for years for those who haven’t. If anyone deserves any type of credit it’s the paying owners.

OK.

I don't know any more about the specifics of the settlement than anyone else, just what was in the press release and what I was told by the head of the Real Estate Enforcement Division of the NYAG. I have shared that already.

The investigation has ended. A settlement has been reached. We are all waiting for the details to be released. I have no evidence for this, but I wouldn't release the settlement until I had the administrator and new management company lined up.

No amount of wishful thinking is going to change the result of three years of negotiation by the NYAG and the MC's high priced legal team. If you can locate a private attorney to take it from here, have at it. It seems to me that those efforts didn't go so well before the NYAG started the investigation. Perhaps they will go better now, but again, in my opinion, the odds are against it.

My personal belief is that few if any MC owners will be satisfied with the financial aspect of the settlement. But my interest will become marketable at whatever value the market places on it rather than being frozen. That is something of value to me.

I will be interested in seeing how owners who have not paid their maintenance fees will be treated. Do you think anyone escrowed those funds? Regardless of what the MC may have done, failure to pay without an escrow is just non-payment. Now that the situation is nearing resolution, I feel payment of past due fees should be required, perhaps at a modest discount, and used to upgrade the MC physical plant.

Unwinding this complex situation is a problem of huge proportions. Assertions of what is "right" and "deserved" or dividing $6.5 million by some number of owners doesn't help with the resolution,... especially after a settlement has already been agreed! In addition, the Eichner's may be out of the Manhattan Club, but I haven't heard anything about their ownership of the Park Lane Hotel. We are going to be intertwined with the Eichners as long as they own that property, with shared floors, elevators and who knows what else! Anyone care?

Let's stop "stirring the pot," and simply wait for the disclosure of the settlement. There are so many real questions that will need discussion, we don't have time for this stuff.

With all due respect.

nathanz2, your comments are certainly understandable. frustration has captured most of us, and this redweek.com forum helps us to vent a little, and make some sense of all of this crap and nonsense. your comment, "stop stirring the pot," seems to imply that we owners should roll over and play dead. NO WAY. if we do that, the battle will have been lost. the fact is, we need to stir the pot more vehemently than ever and make those who will administer the bottom line of this ridiculous law suit make accurate note of what we owners deserve: financial and other remuneration for our great losses.......................DUE TO OWNERSHIP IN TMC. IT'S TIME FOR SOMEONE TO COME TO OUR RESCUE INSTEAD OF IGNORING WHAT WE JUSTLY DESERVE. it appears that the nysag has earned his salary and won his case. to date we have been left hanging, since schneiderman works for new york state and not for duped and scammed owners of TMC. it appears that we are left to fend for ourselves which translates to our continued pushing for our legal riights.............continuous stirring of the pot, if you will.

..........and justice for all. keep in touch. pax,

chris

nathanz2 wrote:

OK.

I don't know any more about the specifics of the settlement than anyone else, just what was in the press release and what I was told by the head of the Real Estate Enforcement Division of the NYAG. I have shared that already.

The investigation has ended. A settlement has been reached. We are all waiting for the details to be released. I have no evidence for this, but I wouldn't release the settlement until I had the administrator and new management company lined up.

No amount of wishful thinking is going to change the result of three years of negotiation by the NYAG and the MC's high priced legal team. If you can locate a private attorney to take it from here, have at it. It seems to me that those efforts didn't go so well before the NYAG started the investigation. Perhaps they will go better now, but again, in my opinion, the odds are against it.

My personal belief is that few if any MC owners will be satisfied with the financial aspect of the settlement. But my interest will become marketable at whatever value the market places on it rather than being frozen. That is something of value to me.

I will be interested in seeing how owners who have not paid their maintenance fees will be treated. Do you think anyone escrowed those funds? Regardless of what the MC may have done, failure to pay without an escrow is just non-payment. Now that the situation is nearing resolution, I feel payment of past due fees should be required, perhaps at a modest discount, and used to upgrade the MC physical plant.

Unwinding this complex situation is a problem of huge proportions. Assertions of what is "right" and "deserved" or dividing $6.5 million by some number of owners doesn't help with the resolution,... especially after a settlement has already been agreed! In addition, the Eichner's may be out of the Manhattan Club, but I haven't heard anything about their ownership of the Park Lane Hotel. We are going to be intertwined with the Eichners as long as they own that property, with shared floors, elevators and who knows what else! Anyone care?

Let's stop "stirring the pot," and simply wait for the disclosure of the settlement. There are so many real questions that will need discussion, we don't have time for this stuff.

With all due respect.

Have tried to reply alexcrystal22@gmail.com does not work for me