Turtle Bay Village (TBV) Committee update, March 2009

This note contains important information related to TBV.

Events over the last three months have moved on at an alarming pace and it has been difficult to keep up with all of the major changes which have sprung up requiring the committee’s immediate attention. We have endeavoured to keep owners fully informed of our actions and decisions, however these have often been difficult to determine as the situation continues to rapidly evolve.
We look forward to a period of greater stability as soon as the key issues outlined below have been resolved.


Management Operating Structure for TBV

In January the committee and TBV owners were advised by Udi Ilan of Kensington Development (KD) that a decision had been made to set up ResCo as the operating company for TBV instead of Sharon Management (SM). SM are part of the Ariel group. The committee was not consulted about these changes.
Given that ResCo was originally set up as a dormant company to hold the shares and the deposit monies for the owners this proposal seemed to conflict with the original purpose of the company.

The committee’s response was to seek urgent advice from a leading TRNC law firm. We have engaged Naomi Mehmet and Partners and are dealing directly with Naomi Mehmet herself. Naomi has assessed the situation and had outlined how we may need to proceed with this matter. This is still work in progress but essentially she is helping us to prepare for a meeting with KD and hopefully Ariel in the near future.

The committee are working with Udi Ilan to agree the steps that need to be taken to change the management structure for TBV and the target date for this to be finalised is January 2010.

In our understanding, to put it simply, we (the owners) now no longer employ Sharon Management in a client/contractor relationship. Instead, SM staff have transferred to ResCo and their staff are the employees of ResCo. Udi Ilan is currently the majority shareholder of ResCo but in due course the shareholding is to transfer to owners. The relationship between us and "site management personnel" is therefore very different. Clearly we also will be seeking advice from Naomi around the drawing up of a new set of contracts to reflect the new relationship between ResCo owners and ResCo Management. We are sure we you will appreciate the amount of time and effort this all involves.


Ariel Group decision to pull out of TBV Contract

Since the decision outlined above there have been two significant events which impact both the day to day running of site and the longer term operations generally. Firstly we were informed by Ariel that Arie Aizenshtat had resigned from his position as General Manager of the site and a couple of weeks later we were informed that Ariel Group no longer wish to manage TBV and they have resigned. There is a copy of their resignation letter attached to this message.

The committee are currently seeking further clarification around this decision with respect to Ariel’s ongoing commitments. Clearly this decision raises many questions as to how we deal with the future running of the site, so again is work in progress. .

The good thing is that Simon Hall, who many of you will have already met, has been appointed to the role of General Manager and is employed by ResCo Management Limited. All of this leads to many more questions and we shall of course keep you informed on a regular basis now that the new Forum is up and running once we have some answers.

Proposed Maintenance Fees for 2009/10

The committee have been working with Simon Hall on the proposed budget and are recommending that the new rates are agreed by the owners to ensure that there will be enough money coming in to cover the cost of running the village.

After much deliberation the committee have agreed the maintenance fees set out below. These are backdated to 1st January 2009.

The fees include the cost of insuring the village which makes up some of the proposed increase.

New fee structure:
Two bedrooms - £67 per month
Three bedrooms/villas - £77 per month

We believe that this is the minimum amount that can sustain the village to the standard we expect but relies on all owners making regular payments to the Management Company.
We have attached a copy of the new bank account set up to enable all owners to make payments into a ResCo account at Lloyds bank in London which saves the cost of transferring funds abroad.

The committee and Simon Hall are all working very hard and spending an enormous amount of time to resolve this complex situation. We are confident that together we can resolve these issues but we do need the support of every owner in paying their maintenance fees in order to ensure that the site goes from strength to strength and becomes the dream we were all promised.

Bob Strawford
Chairman of Turtle Bay Owners’ Committee