Caribbean Islands Realty
Gales, Tales & Rales from 35 years in the Caribbean. Real Estate Agents you will love to write home about!
Feb
29
    
Filed Under (Real Estate, Resorts, fractionals) by Jim Walberg on 29-02-2008

Harliquin Property just announced this morning that they are now offering fractional ownership in their residences at Buccament Bay Resort!

 London, England:  Hot off the presses…I just received confirmation this morning from London that Harlequin Property has just announced that they will be offering fractional owernship purchases for their residences at Buccament Bay Resort.  You will recall that I discovered this 5-star resort 42-buccament-bay-villa-interior1.jpglast September while sailing around St. Vincent. It is a spectacular resort right on the beach with all of the amenities one would expect. You will also recall that Harlequin Property is developing 5-star resorts in five other locations in the Caribbean. We are now a part of their worldwide marketing groups that represent all of their resort projects, from the Caribbean to Thailand.

In addition to the fractional ownership opportunities at Buccament Bay, Harlequin is offering their 42-buccament-bay-waterfront-villas1.jpg100% financing package to those 42-peter-may1.jpgwho qualify. It is a brilliantly simple financing structure that Harlequin Property has created that allows for a much broader group of buyers to participate in resort property ownership.

The developers of Buccament Bay have also created one of the biggest water gardens in the Caribbean within the resort.  They have contracted the services of Mr. Peter May, garden designer, author and water-landscaper, and editor of Water Gardener Magazine.  His January 23rd article was about this project. Mr. May flew to St. Vincent last November to preview the project and see if it was one that his firm would be willing to take on.  It has just been announced that Mr. May’s firm is going to take the lead on this project.

Mr. May says, “There should be a mass of material created from this adventure to show readers how to build water gardens in the tropics. Part of the excitment is that I don’t know what the challenges really are until I get started. One of them will undoubtedly be the weather, plus the exrtremes from one season to another, the sun and the heat are going to make water gardens become swampy lagoons in no time unless there is a plenty of oxygenation and a good balance of plants. Resorting to technology will also be imperative rather than an option with a project of this magnitude.”

St Vincent is the location for many of the scenes in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and the bay next along from where many of those scenes were shot is the site of a new pretigious holiday resort that has been is sensitively designed to blend in with the beautiful landscape. If you want to get an idea od what may be involved, take a trip to Buccament Bay and check out the site plan and the artist’s renditions of what is in store for those special few that purchase full ownership or fractional ownership residences in this 5-star resort on St. Vincent.  Your Caribbean lifestyle detective remains on duty.



Comments:
3 Comments posted on "Caribbean Fractionals Have Arrived On St. Vincent & The Grenadines!"
Bryan on April 18th, 2008 at 3:49 pm #

I’d be very careful before signing a contract with Harlequin. I purchased a property in Merricks Barbados and they offer very little investor protection and are quite a pushy sales organisation.

In my case ap posting on another website states that Merricks will not be ready until December 2012 not 31 December 2010 as stated in my contract. And full planning has yet to be obtained, so whether this date is correct is anyone’s guess!! And in the meantime I am getting no interest on my deposit and my contract only gives me a maximum of 5% compensation if there is a delay! The position will be worse for those investors who have arranged with Harlequin to pay the finance on the 30% deposit - they will have significant rolled up payments and interest to add to the eventual mortgage they will need. In the meantime, if the post is correct, my 30% deposit is floating around unprotected for the next approx FIVE years at MY expense, whilst Harlequin earns interest on my money and doesn’t pay it to me and in the meantime can do pretty much what it chooses with my deposit.

So - potential investors with Harlequin be very careful, particularly with the estimated completion dates, ensuring your money is protected (it should be on an escrow account managed by a UK solicitor or reputable overseas solicitor to maximise safety) and that you get full interest if there are any delays, not capped interest or no interest. If they refuse then look for another deal, I have found one (unfortunately AFTER I invested in Merricks!) which gives 25% interest in one year with funds controlled by UK solicitors and monies held on a UK escrow account and fully secured on land which is independently valued every 6 months.

This is after the Harlequin director reassured me that Merricks would be ready ‘early 2011′ in a meeting a few weeks ago!! Let’s just pray that nothing goes wrong with Harlequin over the next five years and that the predicted capital gains become a reality!

Jim Walberg on April 19th, 2008 at 11:15 am #

Bryan, thank you so much for commenting on Harlequin Property and your experience with them regarding the realities of how your money is being used - or not used, and he two year delay predicted for the Merrick’s Barbados project. I will follow-up on your comments and get back to you as to what I find out. This is not good PR for a company that is heavily invested in the promotion of six+ 5-star resorts in the Caribbean. We have high hopes and expectations for their projects and we hope the credit meltdown in the world banking community is not going to deter them from completing what they have committed to. Again, thank you for your comments.

Pete Burgess on June 4th, 2008 at 10:48 am #

Any further developments / comments on this? I was considering buying into the Marquis Estate in St Lucia, arranging Finance with Harlequin as well.

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