Dear Spring Run Member,
In February, the Board ratified a motion from January to reaffirm its support for the “Delegation of Use” policy of the Declaration, Section 15.4, which states that “Any Owner which leases his or her Unit shall be presumed to have delegated his or her easements and rights to use of the Club Facilities to his or her tenant or occupant, and such Owner’s easements and rights to use shall be suspended during the term of the lease.” The motion also carried with it a clause to “grandfather” a group of members who currently have leases to social members this season, with no specified period of time to remain on the list. While this issue was approved February 28, 2013, a new motion came up in March to place a time limitation on compliance of this rule. In other words, while the February motion was presumed to only be limited to the future sale of the unit, this new motion placed a deadline for compliance of Oct, 2014.
This motion has been posted for 30 days for members and will be voted on at the April meeting to either ratify it, amend it, or deny it. That said, it appears that the ability to remain on the list may be dictated by the duration of the current lease, not by the Board’s recommendation on adequate time to comply. Per an explanation from the Club’s counsel, an owner renewing an annual lease with the same tenant does not constitute a new lease, and therefore, would allow the owner to stay on the list. Any owner with a seasonal lease, even if they sign that same tenant up next year, is creating a new lease, and therefore not eligible to remain on the grandfathered list once the lease expires.
It is important to note that the owners with Social transfers are losing club privileges ONLY for the duration of the lease. Then they have their full rights and privileges once the lease is over.
The transfer member issue has come under scrutiny over the past couple years as more owners have retired to spend more time in Spring Run. This situation creates more demand for tee times, while the supply of available tee times stays the same. Owners who had social member leases had continued to maintain their privileges, as they had done in the past when there was no such thing as a social membership…they had simply not “transferred golf” with the association. A Transfer Member Task Force was appointed to research this issue in depth. One thing they reaffirmed was the need to either follow or amend the documents, as our policy and rules were not aligned. The question now has become: did the owners ever have the legal right NOT to “transfer golf”?
What is best for the Spring Run Golf Club community? On one hand, the legal issues appear clear. If you lease your unit, you have delegated your rights and privileges in Spring Run. On the other hand, certain owners in Spring Run have enjoyed privileges in the Community, which are not permissible according to the Declaration, but was permitted by the Club which never questioned the practice. While these members have a longstanding stake in the Community, the privileges were never really permitted in the first place.
One option is to propose an amendment to the Declaration to be sent out to the membership for a vote. Passage would require a 75% affirmative vote of the membership.
Mike
Springing Forward 
Not the clearest explanation but the next to last paragraph seems to sum it up. If you lease your unit to someone you give up your membership privileges for the period of the lease. Grandfathering would not be allowed per enforcement of 15.4 even though enforcement was ignored in the past. I would like to add that the explanation of this issue should, in my opinion, be coming from the board and not from the general manager. Suggestions on how to resolve the issue also should be coming from the board and not the general manager. This is nothing against Mr. Ziegler but the responsibility for this issue is too important that the board should not be communicating directly with the membership about it.
I don’t understand why an owner renewing an annual lease with the same tenant does not constitute a new lease and an owner renewing a seasonal lease with the same tenant does. Can someone explain this?
When an existing tenant stays in place under an automatic or optional renewal of the existing lease, then clearly it is not a new lease as the parties are operating on the original lease. The tenant is in place, which gives the tenant/owner some equity to claim that they were in a continuing relationship.
As to the seasonal tenant, they typically do not have a lease that gives them an option of returning, but instead they leave at the end of the “season” sometimes with a verbal commitment of returning next year. It is rare to have a written seasonal lease with options to return next year, but it could be done and recognized by the association as such. In the absence of a written agreement giving defined rights, the relationship ends at the end of the season and the tenant departs.
Hope that answers your question.
Mike, technically and legally well reasoned reply concerning the difference between a lease with an automatic extension feature vs a typical seasonal lease, but the bigger issue is one of equity and nondiscriminatory treatment of all members paying the same dues and assessments. Either all members paying the same dues and assessments should have the right to retain golf privileges when leasing out their properties (regardless of the term of the lease), or none should. Any “grandfathering” will have some element of inequitable discrimination, and should be of very short duration.
Mike (and Board), one other comment I forgot to add to my previous post today: Treating all members alike, i.e., uniformly allow retention, or require loss, of golf privileges if property is leased out, causes no disturbance of rights and obligations as between a current lessor and lessee. They would each still have the rights and obligations to one another, including those applicable to lease term extension, spelled out in the lease. It would mean only that the rights and obligations between the owner/lessor and other SRGA members are the same as those by which all other Spring Run property owners must abide.
This is a part of our docs that needs to be enforced, not changed.
D. Schwartz, Hidden Lakes.
inasmuch as a social membership was created it is my opinion that if such a membership is in place the owner should retain the right to play golf. In such a case there is no increased pressure on tee times. This is a most important issue that will affect the values in Spring Run and should be voted upon by the membership.
All owners should have to live by the same rules because othewise owners with the same dues would enjoy different privileges, i.e.,, receive different value for their dues. I would prefer that all owners have the right to lease their property and transfer all but golf privileges retained by the member, but if that is not to be no owner should have that right. I am somewhat sympathetic toward limited grandfathering for owners who entered into leases before this brouhaha started and in reliance on past practices, with such grandfathering limited to the end of current terms of current leases, not exceeding 12 months from the date this issue first appeared on a board agenda. But even that is problematic, and would probably require the association to incur legal expense for examination of the term and associated provisions of each affected lease unless the person requesting grandfathering reimbursed the association for the cost of of that examination and agreed to abide by the resulting legal opinion. It would still be unjustly discriminatory to those of us who purchased in Spring Run in part because of our knowledge of past practices and and the expectation of taking advantage ourselves of those practices, but I could personally live with that for a short time under these unusual circumstances.
It is very difficult to get a reasonable tee time during the season. The way it is now we just have to many golfers for an eighteen hole golf course. The rules are, if you transfer your privileges to a renter then you can not play. It seems pretty simple to me. Enforce our rules. That is why they were made.