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Robert J. Webb, RRP

Robert Webb maintains a diverse real estate, business and hospitality law practice with a strong emphasis on international resort development, timeshares, fractionals and private residence clubs, hotels and condominium hotels, second homes, cruise ship and residence vessel programs and the growing international travel and leisure industry. Rob is a regular contributor to Baker Hostetler’s HospitalityLawg®, which offers commentary and opinions on hospitality industry issues, trends, challenges and news.

Board Certified in Real Estate Law by the Florida Bar since 1987, Rob is the senior member and was the founding leader of the Baker Hostetler Hospitality Industry Team. He has practiced in virtually all aspects of the international resort and leisure industry over the past thirty years, including hotels, timeshares, fractionals, resort condominiums and condotels, cruise ship and residence vessels, membership campgrounds, vacation and travel clubs, exchange companies and point systems, development finance, owners’ association operation, management and finance and new product development. Rob was instrumental in the creation, design and development of many of today’s leading branded and independent timeshare plans, including the Disney Vacation Club, the Hilton Grand Vacations Club, the Hyatt Vacation Club, the Starwood Vacation Network, the Allegro Vacation Club, Club Navigo and the Four Seasons Residence Club, and he represents one of the leaders in the timeshare resale industry, SellMyTimeshareNow, LLC. He has a strong background in lender workouts, title insurance law and practice and in general commercial real estate development. He is rated AV by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory.

Rob has participated in the drafting and adoption of every Florida statutory amendment and administrative rule affecting the timeshare industry since 1983, including the lock-out law, the timeshare solicitor and owner referral laws, the timeshare resale broker law, the vacation club law, the streamlined timeshare foreclosure law, the personal property timeshare amendments of 2003 and Florida’s recently adopted non-judicial timeshare foreclosure law. He was also principally involved in the negotiation and drafting of the 1995 Puerto Rico Timeshare and Vacation Club Act and the 2004 California timeshare law, and was active in the industry’s successful efforts to secure helpful changes to the timeshare laws and rules in many states, including Illinois, New York, Hawaii, Arizona and South Carolina. Rob was appointed as a member of the Florida Troubled Resorts Task Force by the Secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, and he chaired the task force subcommittee on ad valorem taxation issues.

Rob has a special interest in international leisure and shared ownership, hotel development and resort management, with an emphasis on mixed-use developments in the Caribbean and Central America. He has been involved over the years in several projects in each of the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Jamaica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, St. Croix, St. John, St. Thomas, St. Kitts and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Rob has been active since 1981 in the American Resort Development Association (ARDA), the U.S. timeshare trade association. He currently serves as Treasurer of ARDA, as a member of the ARDA Board of Directors and its Executive Committee, as a board member of the ARDA International Foundation, as an ARDA Trustee and as Chair of the ARDA Legislative Council. He has also served as counsel to ARDA-Florida since its creation in 1983, and he is past chair of the ARDA Legislative and Regulatory Policy Advisory Committee (LARPAC) and the ARDA State Legislative Committee. ARDA has also recognized Rob as a Registered Resort Professional (RRP).

During an absence from Baker Hostetler in 2000, Rob served as president of firm client and timeshare developer Island One, Inc. Prior to joining Baker Hostetler in 1988, he was a shareholder in the Orlando law firm of DeWolf, Ward & Morris, P.A. He serves as a director and general counsel for Spottswood Companies, Inc., a hospitality company based in Key West, Florida, and as strategic director and general counsel for The Venn Company, a new hospitality company that is developing mixed-use leisure products. Rob also serves as a member of the Board of Governors of the Citrus Club in Orlando.

Rob is a member of the American, Florida and Orange County, Florida, Bar Associations.