As you may or may not know, but an Ilikai neighbor, Discovery Bay, had their own share of trouble with timeshare. (Discovery Bay is a 42-story twin tower condominium complex across the street from the Ilikai.) Back in the 1980s, Paradise Palms Vacation Club acquired eight units at Discovery Bay and started points-based timeshare operations. Discovery Bay pursued a lawsuit to prevent the use of units for timeshare purposes and succeeded removing timeshare operations from the premises. Good for them!
There was also a related lawsuit: Federal Trade Commission (F.T.C.) v. Paradise Palms Vacation Club, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19109 (W.D. Wash. 1986 ) (click on the link to view) alleging developer’s misrepresentations about location, availability and exchange privileges of Hawaii timeshare units.
Discovery Bay
In F.T.C. v. Paradise Palms Vacation Club, it was alleged that timeshare developers sold some 3,000 timeshares at $6,000 a share by using promotional material depicting Discovery Bay, luxurious Hawaii condominiums near or on the beach at Waikiki. However, the defendants were unable to deliver the advertised Hawaii timeshares to more than 20% of the timeshare owners. The remainder were offered “comparable” units in Lake Tahoe and Ocean Shores, Washington.
Several years later, the Paradise Palms case was resolved by the entry of judgments against the timeshare developers one of which described the following misrepresentations:
“(A) That each (timeshare owner) would be able to vacation in a luxurious condominium unit in Hawaii every year for decades to come. In fact, the Club’s luxury units would accommodate no more than 20% of its members. The large majority of (the) vacation units were not in Hawaii at all, but rather in an apartment building in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and a motel in Ocean Shores, Washington.
(B) That (defendant) owned the entire 42-story, twin tower Discovery Bay condominium complex in Waikiki. In fact, the Club owned only eight Discovery Bay units, all of which were the subject of litigation seeking to prevent their use for timesharing purposes.”
Note that the lawsuit was separate from the other lawsuit that succeeded to cease timeshare operations at Discovery Bay.