August 28, 2024

RE: Notice of Budget Meeting
Notice of Annual Meeting
Monarch at Sea Pines Owners’ Association, Inc.

Dear Marriott’s Monarch Owner:

Next month, you will receive the Notice of Annual and Budget Meetings for Monarch at Sea Pines Owners’ Association, Inc.

It is extremely important for all Owners to vote. We have included the details of what is being proposed:

2042 Termination. The Monarch Timeshare Plan was established over 35 years ago. At the time it was not uncommon for timeshare plans, as they are referred to in South Carolina’s time share statute, to include a termination date. Our plan terminates in 2042 (Declaration of Interval Ownership, Article XVII). While 2042 is still years away, the Board of Directors urges Association members to vote to extend our timeshare plan now, well ahead of the 2042 termination date.

The Monarch at Sea Pines Owners Association, Inc. (“Monarch” or “Association”) is part of a plan of interval ownership as defined by S.C. Code Ann 27-32 (the “Plan”). Monarch is governed by several documents (the “Governing Documents”), specifically, a Master Deed, a Declaration and By-Laws as described in Exhibit 1 of the Proxy. Each of the Governing Documents contain references to the 2042 termination date.

The S.C. General Assembly codified the Vacation Time Sharing Plan Extension and Termination Act, S.C. Code Ann. § 27-32-500 et seq. in 2019. That statute created a new mechanism by which owners of time shares within plans that are set to expire may elect to extend the lives of such plans. The Board has determined that statute is the best mechanism by which to deal with our own 2042 termination date. For one thing, the statute allows us to pass this measure with fewer votes than would be required to amend the Governing Documents to achieve the same goal.

If the proposal is approved, all existing references to the original termination date found in the Governing Documents will become null and void.

What would termination of the timeshare plan mean? Article XVII of the Declaration states that unless the members of the Association meet and vote to extend the timeshare program, upon termination of the timeshare plan in 2042, unit week Owners become tenants in common. Tenancy in common is a legal form of ownership wherein all of the owners of a property have equal rights to the property. It is a viable way of owning shared property when there are two or three owners. However, in our situation, owning a condo unit with dozens of Owners whom you have most likely never met is simply not workable. This is particularly true in the absence of the existing plan of interval ownership. Becoming tenants in common would end our right to occupy our fixed weeks. In fact, there would cease to be any system to manage occupancy at all. What’s more, individual’s timeshare interests would have no resale value, not to mention that getting all of the co-owners of any given condominium unit to agree to sell the entire unit would be practically impossible.

The termination provisions in the Master Deed and Declaration do presently allow for ten-year extensions of the timesharing plan, but each extension requires an in-person meeting of the Association within a narrow window of time. An in-person meeting of approximately 4,000 Owners is a logistical impossibility. So, with no action to void the termination provision altogether, the timeshare program would most likely permanently end in 2042 and leave us with nothing short of chaos.

For purposes of this vote to pass, at least 50% of the ownership interests in the Common Elements must be present or submit proxies in order for there to be quorum. For the agenda item to pass, 60% of the ownership interests in the Common Elements must vote ‘YES’ in favor of its passage.

Please look for this material in the coming weeks and submit your Proxy as soon as possible. Your vote and participation are important!

If you have questions regarding the Annual Meeting, please contact Morrow Sodali by email at mvci.info@sodali.com.

Sincerely,

Eileen Fitzgerald
Secretary
Monarch at Sea Pines Owners’ Association, Inc.