A group of owners in Tobiano are coming together to discuss potential next steps to address — what they claim — is a lack of transparency with the resort’s developer — Diverse Properties.

At issue is the annual resort fees, which local homeowner Carole Mains says have increased between 140 per cent to 160 per cent this year.

“They [Diverse Properties] claim they were subsidizing the costs of maintaining the trails to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, but they’ve been unable or unwilling to tell us where this deficit came from and what that money was spent on,” said Mains.

“We [the owners] believe, looking at this situation, that it was capital costs and not maintenance, so it was never part of the fee structure for the TRA anyway.”

Mains explains that in February, Diverse lawyers wrote letters to the owners, saying the owners were not members of the Tobiano Resort Association.

“And that therefore, the society’s bylaws were irrelevant to the provision of the maintenance budget, and how Diverse had the right to collect the fees, as whatever the developer sees fit.”

This prompting the group of owners decided to file a complaint with the BC Civil Resolutions Tribunal back in March.

“It [the tribunal] was based on the activities of the Tobiano Resort Association Society being conducted in a manner oppressive to the members. The complaint was about Diverse Properties denying the resident owners any transparency about where they were spending the huge amounts of money that they were asking for from the owners.”

However, Mains says the Tribunal ruled last week that until the build-out is complete, her group is not considered part of the Tobiano Resort Association.

“Diverse then replied to the CRT, that since we were not members of the society the CRT had no jurisdiction to continue looking at our claim so, so the CRT looked at the bylaws and made the decision that we could not be members of the TRA until build-out is complete.”

Mains suggests the ruling from the tribunal was troubling, noting she believes the build-out of the resort is still over a decade away.

“The problem is, the transition won’t happen within my lifetime; they will be developing here for years, probably another 15 years, maybe more.”

Mains says they’re now discussing their options, which she suggests, could include legal action.

“We are looking at hiring lawyers, there are many avenues that we are pursuing but we are trying to get them [Diverse Properties] to talk to us, to be reasonable and to at least include the ownership to have some kind of transparency and representation in the decisions that are made here.”

In a statement to RadioNL, Diverse Properties says they are expecting the annual resort fees in Tobiano to decrease in the future.

Diverse states the increase in resort fees is mostly due to the fact the developer is covering the shortfall “to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

BC Interior Principal James Funk says the deficit began racking up for three reasons.

“Providing services at no cost or below market cost; forgiving loans the developer made to the TRA; and making direct payment for matters legally the responsibility of the TRA.”

Pointing to concerns over this year’s Resort Fees increase, Diverse says in a statement there were “third party costs involved with running the TRA.”

“The developer has sought competitive bids in order to obtain these services and, to date, homeowners haven’t expressed concerns in this regard.”

Coming to issues around management, Diverse Properties states the developer approached various third-party property management companies about potentially taking over, noting their quotes came back “substantially higher than ours.”

“We have welcomed homeowners to find another management company to manage this, and we would give serious consideration to allowing the management company to take over TRA responsibilities if it is in the best interests of the homeowners,” said the statement.

“To date, neither the Developer nor any homeowners have found any group willing to carry out these duties for less money than the current budget amount.”

Diverse says as more homes come on and the administrative cost of collecting fees lowers.

“It is expected each homeowner will pay less in TRA fees in years to come, starting next year.”

Diverse Properties says they have been having “ongoing consultation” with residents with Town Halls, Focus Groups, and An Open Door Policy to speak to TRA Staff, noting the next Focus Group is tentatively scheduled for August.