Views From Deer Ridge And Beyond

These are my personal images and photos that show the beauty of the view from Deer Ridge Mountain Resort and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cobbly Nob and the Gatlinburg, Tennessee area.

Just click the Play button to watch - or click Big Picture to see a much larger slide show on a dedicated page here at DeerRidgeOwners.com.

Deer Ridge Litigation Fund

Do you, as an owner at Deer Ridge Mountain Resort, believe we are ALL entitled to have access and be able to copy the books and records of our Homeowner's Association?

So, do I.

But, apparently, Employee Joe Thomas and President Luther Parker and the Board disagree - and are doing all they can to block access, publication and candid discussion of the Asinine Assessment, special deals and favored treatment - at the expense of all Owners.

What ARE they so afraid of us finding out?

Maybe it has to do with the HUGE $10,000 overcharge for my HOA Fees, special assessments, water and cable TV bill - which, in my personal opinion, is due to fraudulent intent or at least gross negligence by the Deer Ridge Board of Directors and / or General Manager Joe Thomas. Please see the posts for details.

We have no choice but to file a lawsuit against GGRC and RML in order to finally, once and for all, make it clear that OWNERS do have a right to all the information about our property and our investment at Deer Ridge.

If you have thoughts and ideas and suggestions, please post them here on this blog.

If you have any clout with the Board, convince them to stop the charade - and let the owners have the information that all owners own!

If you want to help cover the legal costs to get us the right to see the bids for $50,000 for nuts and bolts - and the other background documents for the $353,500 Asinine Assessment, please click on the Donate Button below.

With enough in donations, we can hire BOTH an attorney AND a forensic accountant for the whole process through the Court in Sevier County to make absolutely certain we win EVERY point - and never have to fight Employee Joe and the Board on this stuff again.

Even a $100 contribution will help show that you are in favor of an open and FULLY transparent homeowners' association at Deer Ridge Mountain Resort!

Thanks so much to those of you who have already contributed!


Disclaimer

Legalese On

GENERAL DISCLAIMER FOR ALL PAGES AND POSTS AND EVERYTHING ELSE I DO OR SAY REGARDING DEER RIDGE AND ANY AND ALL RELATED PARTIES:

Note: The following, and the information on any and all other posts and pages by me about General Manager Joe Thomas, GGRC, RML and /or the Board of Directors and its members, or any related topics, are my personal opinions based on my ongoing investigation into the actions and inactions of the GGRC and RML Board of Directors and / or Joe Thomas, General Manager.

While I believe these allegations to be true based on my objective analysis, these opinions remain as only allegations until I, or others, prove things in court.

My goal is to offer all owners all the information and evidence that I have available so that everyone can reach their own conclusions.

Please note the obvious:

Everything I ever say or write in person, via emails, or on my blog, about Deer Ridge or any and all related entities and organizations or any and all affiliated personnel or owners, is strictly my own personal opinion of course - based, in part, from my owning a unit at Deer Ridge for over five years - and on my own personal history.

That history includes earning a Presidential MBA degree, being awarded a Bachelor of Science, With Honors, in Engineering Physics from UT, working for NASA as a rocket scientist at Marshall Space Flight Center, 30 years of CEO experience directly employing and managing many hundreds of people at multiple companies I personally started and operated (including one that I took public), 15 years experience buying and selling over $100 million of property and managing more than 45,000 rental units - AND being able to read and do four-function arithmetic.

Legalese - And Powered Wig - Off

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Welcome to All Deer Ridge Owners

Welcome to all owners of Deer Ridge Mountain Resort condos in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

My goal is to help all Deer Ridge owners to have a voice in the management and operation of your property.

Click on the TITLES of any of the following subjects to read the whole posting - and see the comments made by your co-owners. You can also type any term into the below search box, or any word or term in the search cloud.

Click the big image at the top of the page to return to the front page at any time.

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Investment Analysis For A Rental Condo At Deer Ridge


Will you really lose $40,000 cash if you buy a rental condo at Deer Ridge and use Ridge Management Ltd?

Click To Download!

As an owner-occupied home, Deer Ridge is an incredible value with THE best view in the Smokies and great amenities.

However, several owners and would-be owners of Deer Ridge condos have asked me if these units are a good rental property investment or not. To help answer that question objectively, I had to analyze the real moving parts of buying and owning here.

Get my complete, detailed investment analysis based on buying a rental condo unit at Deer Ridge Mountain Resort in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

It shows what you MUST do to make money when you buy a rental unit at Deer Ridge.

Just click the picture or click Investment Analysis

Recommended Cameras

Gross Negligence – Or Is It Fraud?

Every Dollar You Pay For Deer Ridge Is The WRONG Amount!

Please read the various posts here on this Deer Ridge Owners Blog - and see my evidence and analysis which I believe shows conclusively that EVERY dollar of HOA Fees, EVERY dollar EVERY special assessment, EVERY water bill and cable TV sent out for YEARS to ALL Deer Ridge Owners has been wrong!

In many cases at least ONE THIRD of ALL owners have been GROSSLY overcharged. My calculations show that I have been overcharged more than TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS in the past 50 months I've owned at Deer Ridge.

The Board has been WRONGLY and arbitrarily ignoring the requirements of the Master Deed and the Bylaws for YEARS.

If my analysis is correct, the Board has zero choice. They MUST abide by the Master Deed Percentages.

But they haven’t.

However, if the Board knowingly ignored the clear directives of the Master Deed and the Bylaws when allocating costs to various unit types, and overcharging certain unit types on a regular basis, my opinion is that the Board and Joe Thomas may have acted fraudulently.

If they have not been fraudulent, then they have been, at the very least, grossly negligent.

Read the various blog postings - and judge for yourself.

Comments Welcome From All Visitors

You are welcome to leave your comments on the various posts on the blog. You no longer have to be registered to comment. (Even regular contributors had trouble remembering their log on passwords!)

Note that SPAM blockers are in place - and all comments require approval to be visible.

So, let's hear from you on these topics!

To view the comments, you need to click on the post topic to see the entire post and the comments.

"We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert." — J. Robert Oppenheimer. This includes the Board of Directors of Deer Ridge Mountain Resort.


Are You Being Sued By Deer Ridge Too?

share save 171 16 Are You Being Sued By Deer Ridge Too?

If you have not paid the Asinine Assessment for Deer Ridge Mountain Resort, you probably have already been sued by Joe Thomas and the rest of the Gang of Six.

In addition to their specious $1 million lawsuit against me, I have also been served with a Sessions Court suit for the non-payment of the assessment which I believe is completely illegitimate for at least four reasons.

If you live out of state, you may have already been sued by not yet been served by the constable or process server.  Once you are served you will have a yellow piece of paper like the one to the right which is a copy of their suit against me.GGRC Sessions Court Suit AgainstMe 300x230 Are You Being Sued By Deer Ridge Too?

Your Five Options

If you have been sued, you have five choices, or paths, available to you in my personal opinion:

  1. Pay them the money.
  2. Declare bankruptcy.
  3. Ignore the lawsuit and allow them to get a default judgment against you which would then allow them to foreclose on your condo.
  4. Hire your own attorney and fight them in court using one of the four reasons, or some other defense.
  5. Join with us in our current $3 million lawsuit against GGRC, Joe Thomas and the rest of the Gang of Six and fight them.

I certainly do not recommend any of the first three choices.  Your decision on which of the above paths is right for you is obviously up to you – but I would rather pay a lot more in legal fees to fight this unjust and illegitimate assessment than let these jokers continue to violate state and Deer Ridge regime law.

Joe Thomas and the rest of the Gang of Six have been doing as they please, without regard to our Master Deed and Bylaws, for way too long – and it is time to finally stop them and force them to pay out of their own pockets for the multitude of ultra vires acts they have perpetrated against Deer Ridge Owners for so many years.

My Defense Against Their General Sessions Court Suit

My attorney is already taking steps to block this Sessions Court suit on two issues, as I understand them:

  1. Our $3 million lawsuit was filed a week before their Sessions Court suit which gives our suit priority.
  2. This case is too complex for a simple Sessions Court non-payment suit.  We already believe we have four reasons to invalidate the suit.  Some of these will require declaratory judgments regarding valid interpretations of various parts of our Master Deed and Bylaws.  These declaratory judgments will be an integral part of the jury’s decisions regarding our case and hence are beyond the scope of the Sessions Court.

The above is my best guess at this point since the attorneys are still discussing an agreed order regarding this matter – but at this point, I fully expect that we will quickly win these points.

Your Best Choice – Join As A Co-Plaintiff In Our Suit

If you join as a co-plaintiff in our existing lawsuit, you benefit from lower legal costs and by participating in a lawsuit that probably pre-dates their Sessions Court lawsuit against you.  As a co-plaintiff, you can also share in any major awards and reimbursements of legal fees we may gain from our $3 million lawsuit against them.

I am not an attorney – but if you are interested, please contact me ASAP and I will put you in contact with my attorney so that you can make a fully informed decision.

share save 171 16 Are You Being Sued By Deer Ridge Too?

RML Lie Exposed: RML Actually Has Negative Cash Flow Of $152,000 Per Year

share save 171 16 RML Lie Exposed:  RML Actually Has Negative Cash Flow Of $152,000 Per Year

Summary:  Do you realize that HALF of all HOA fees collected each YEAR from ALL Deer Ridge Owners are illegitimately used to pay the $152,000 a year negative cash flow of RML???

No wonder we never have ANY reserves for Deer Ridge – and the illegitimate “board” tries to force all owners to fund an illegitimate $353,500 Asinine Assessment to help cover up their lie that RML fully supports itself.

I have completed a GGRC and RML budget analysis that we intend to use in our $3 million lawsuit against GGRC and Joe Thomas and the “board” – and I thought you might find it overwhelming indicative of the lies and misrepresentations that are being perpetrated here at Deer Ridge.

It shows that RML actually has, in reality, a NEGATIVE CASH FLOW of $152,000 EACH YEAR - not the $12.000 “positive” cash flow that Joe Thomas and the “board” lied to you about with the budget mailing to all owners last December.

OK.  Fair warning:  This post is all about numbers and budget analysis which I know is a total bore to many of you.  So, in an effort to make it easy for you, I am going to give you, up front, the Executive Summary and bottom line of all that follows.  All the data is there if you would like to plow through it to understand where each and every number comes from.

The key question to remember:  For every operating cost associated with Deer Ridge, would that cost, or that full cost, be there IF Deer Ridge was not operated as a motel?  Would that cost, or that full cost, be there if we were operated solely as a small, 84 unit residential condo complex owned by over 78 owners with diverse needs and goals?

Bear in mind that there is NOTHING in the Master Deed or Bylaws that indicates this property is anything other than a small, 84 unit residential condo complex – so there is nothing in our regime documents that sets Deer Ridge out as a motel or as a predominately rental property.  Therefore, when folks buy a condo at Deer Ridge, there is NOTHING in any of the legal documents that provide for RML or running the property as a motel. Each owner can choose to rent or not rent their unit out – but any and all costs associated with renting a unit is that unit’s responsibility.

Hence, the Common Expenses that are funded by all of our HOA fees can ONLY relate to operating Deer Ridge as a small, 84 unit residential condo complex.  So, the point of this analysis is to break out any and all expenses or partial expenses that would not be required of a small, 84 unit residential condo complex.

The Executive Summary – The Dirty Dozen Secrets Of RML

All of the following is my personal opinion based on my detailed analysis of the audits and budgets provided by the “board.”

Joe Thomas and Larry Ohm and the rest of the “board” have been LYING to you for years that RML is profitable – and that RML is the part of Deer Ridge that really supports the real costs here.

All of that is a lie.

  1. The real truth is that RML has a NEGATIVE CASH FLOW of over $152,000 just for 2010, assuming all the budget numbers are hit. (Last year they missed their revenue budget number by almost $100,000 – so, if they miss this year’s number by the same amount, that means the RML Negative Cash Flow could be over $252,000 just for 2010!)
  2. The 2009 actual numbers show that the NEGATIVE CASH FLOW for all of 2009 was over $130,000 according to the numbers in the audits handed out at the 2010 “Annual Meeting.”
  3. The reasons that the budget numbers and the audits show otherwise is that these guys have been playing games with at least 14 line items of expenses totaling nearly $164,000 that are falsely shown as GGRC expenses when they, in fact, have nothing to do with operating and administrating a small 84 unit residential condo community.  Those 14 line items, instead, are related to being in the motel business that is run by RML.
  4. Joey and the “board” know that the truth of this would be unacceptable to a significant number of Deer Ridge owners – so they lie to all the owners about which company is really responsible for each line item – hoping that their “artful dodger” arithmetic will go by unnoticed.  This is one of the reasons for their disinformation campaign and lies trying to discredit me – because they KNEW that I was going to expose these secrets for all Owners to see and understand.
  5. Assuming the last six years was the same level of negative cash flow for RML, then RML has squandered OVER $1 Million of our HOA fees!
  6. This is almost THREE of the current Asinine Assessments!  No wonder we don’t have any money in any of our reserve accounts!  No wonder that Deer Ridge has the HIGHEST HOA fees in the entire area.
  7. This ANNUAL NEGATIVE CASH FLOW represents over HALF of the total HOA fees collected from ALL owners at Deer Ridge – each and every year.
  8. This $152,000 NEGATIVE CASH FLOW each year equates to a cost of over $1,800 to each and every owner at Deer Ridge – including the 20 plus units that do not use RML.  If just those who use RML were to pay this $152,000 negative cash flow each year, they would have to pay $2,375 a year EXTRA just to keep RML out of bankruptcy.  If you think in terms of NET dollars to each owner per year, you can see that RML is not a good deal for ANY owner at Deer Ridge.
  9. This means that RML has wrongly robbed me of over $9,000 just for my unit during the past five years we have owned here.
  10. On top of the financial impact, RML is a illegitimately formed and operated “for profit” corporation owned by a non-profit organization.  There was never even the guise of a vote authorizing its formation – and there is zero provision in the property’s master deed and bylaws that provide even a nickel for paying for RML out of our Common Expense – and here it is, taking over HALF of our HOA fees each and every month from ALL owners.
  11. If GGRC were operated correctly, without RML, and using a professional HOA management company, GGRC would generate a POSITIVE CASH FLOW each year of over $118,000 with current HOA fees in place.  This would have equaled approximately $600,000 over the past five years!  This is almost enough to cover TWO Asinine Assessments – without requiring owners to dig in their pockets for even more money.
  12. The GGRC “board” has a fiduciary duty to ensure that GGRC, not RML,  is operated properly for ALL  Owners in accordance with the Master Deed and Bylaws.  Joe Thomas and the rest of the Gang of Six are GROSSLY violating their fiduciary duty to GGRC by trying to protect RML’s negative cash flow from being discovered – and continuing to deplete hundreds of thousands of dollars of HOA fees to do so.  It is past time to hold every member of the Gang Of Six personally and financially responsible for their wanton disregard for their fiduciary responsibility to every owner at Deer Ridge.

All owners should be outraged at this despicable lie that has been perpetrated by Joe Thomas for YEARS just for his own self-serving reasons to keep employed and paid all the money he unjustifiably gets from our small 84 unit complex.

All owners should be outraged that Luther Parker and Larry Ohm and the rest of the “board” are either so incompetent and grossly negligent to understand this – or are in collusion with Joe Thomas to intentionally misrepresent these facts to all the owners.

We expect to hold Joe Thomas and every member of the “board” fully accountable for every dollar of Owners’ money they have wasted on RML with our $3 million lawsuit – and believe that the jury in our case will have no difficulty in understanding and believing the following analysis that proves their lie – and the extent to which it has been covered up.  And, since these Dirty Dozen Secrets About RML have affected EVERY OWNER, past and present, for the last decade, this will probably be the basis for a SECOND Class Action Lawsuit against Joe Thomas the rest of the Gang of Six.

An Alternative – Professional HOA Management of Deer Ridge

My previous posting How To Fire Joe Thomas And Save GGRC Tens Of Thousands $$$ Each Year gives details on a bid we received from a professional HOA management company that specializes in providing the managerial, administrative and maintenance services required of home owner associations in the Knoxville and Gatlinburg areas.  Their bid provides for:

  • A one time set up fee of $1,680 to audit the books and records
  • A monthly management fee of $1,680 per month plus any and all late fees they collect
  • Maintenance done at $25 per hour for individual homeowners’ repairs.
  • Maintenance for common areas at $40 per hour without a maintenance contract and at $20 an hour with a maintenance contract.
  • All monthly bookkeeping included, which would also save GGRC thousands of dollars per year.
  • All personnel would be their people – not ours – so there would be no cost to us for all personnel related costs. This also means that they provide the back up folks for vacation, illness and resignations and firings.

You can see their full bid by clicking Bid and view their brochure by clicking Brochure.

Bear in mind, that all of these activities are strictly GGRC related and have nothing to do with the illegitimate RML and its’ activities.

Their company:

  • Has been providing HOA services in the area for over a dozen years.
  • Has managed over $800 million in HOA property at over 50 different locations throughout East Tennessee.
  • Has their own accounting and maintenance people along with their own lawn care experts.
  • Prepares the annual budget for the HOA.
  • Collects HOA fees and assessments.
  • Includes all the bookkeeping in their charges.
  • Generates management reports that include monthly management summaries, balance sheet, income and expense statements, budget performance, collection report and bank reconciliation.
  • They maintain the state-required HOA “Administrator’s Book” that seems to be so difficult to produce with the current management team led by “full time” General Manager Joe Thomas.

Again, you can see the whole previous posting by clicking How To Fire Joe Thomas And Save GGRC Tens Of Thousands $$$ Each Year.

By tapping the expertise of this, or some similar company, GGRC ends up with a HUGE positive cash flow each year of nearly $120,000 each year!  That kind of surplus would have been able to fully fund even the absurd Asinine Assessment of $353, 500 in under three years without the need for any additional pay in by all the owners.

Doesn’t it make sense for GGRC to have this kind of positive cash flow each year – instead of using HALF of our HOA fees each and every year from ALL owners to feed the RML negative cash flow???

The Detailed Analysis For Your Review

The following detailed analysis shows you exactly how all of the above conclusions were reached.  I invite you to pour over each of the numbers yourself so that you understand each line item and its implications for our property. Continue reading RML Lie Exposed: RML Actually Has Negative Cash Flow Of $152,000 Per Year

share save 171 16 RML Lie Exposed:  RML Actually Has Negative Cash Flow Of $152,000 Per Year