Marbella Golf Club in San Juan Seeks Chapter 11 Protection : Courts: Bankruptcy filing surprises members, who are now liable for monthly losses of about $50,000. A restructuring plan is expected within a month.

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — Members of the pricey Marbella Golf and Country Club were meeting anxiously Wednesday to learn more about the sudden bankruptcy reorganization filing by one of Orange County’s most prestigious golf course resorts.

The country club, which charged inaugural members nearly $30,000 to sign up but relieved them of the burden of monthly dues, filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana.

Despite a prestigious membership roster that includes some of the county’s most prominent corporate chieftains, the dues structure has led to division among the members caused by ongoing losses of $50,000 a month.

Until now, those losses have been covered by the Marbella Development Corp., the company that built the course.

But the 836 members, including the 310 inaugural members, now own the club and have been told that they must assume all operating costs beginning in January. Newer members have paid up to $85,000 to join the club and are assessed monthly dues ranging from $175 to $295.

The sudden bankruptcy filing came hours after Marbella Development deeded ownership of the golf course to the members. And while it was a members’ committee that approved the bankruptcy, the move took many others by surprise.

Some said they had hoped the club would take the remaining months of the year to try to work out its problems amicably rather than turn them over to the court.

“By panicking and opting to file a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, (the directors) have probably destroyed any hope of saving the club, and members’ equity,” wrote members Gerry and Cynthia Peters in a letter Wednesday to the club’s board of directors.

Gerry Peters said that many of the members met with club officials Wednesday, and that additional legal action was being threatened.

But the lawyer who filed the bankruptcy, Ron Bender, said the club needs to start addressing the deficit immediately. A restructuring plan will be submitted within a month, he said.

The bankruptcy filing states that the club has unspecified assets of less than $10 million and unspecified liabilities of less than $1 million.

The largest unsecured creditor listed, the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche, is owed $6,400.

The club lists 836 members in the filing, including developers Arthur and Brandon Birtcher and their wives and Carmelo J. Santoro, chairman of computer maker AST Research Inc., and his wife.

Marbella Golf and Country Club was founded in the late 1980s as part of a larger development that included luxury home sites. It is within 15 miles of two other luxury private golf courses: Dove Canyon and Coto de Caza.

Marbella’s construction was funded largely by the sale of more than 300 memberships at $29,000 each. The original memberships included stock in the development corporation and did not require annual dues payments.

That feature pitted the first members against the more than 500 later members whose memberships required monthly dues. The dues-payers wanted the inaugural members to begin making dues payments to cover the $50,000 monthly shortfall.

But the original 300 said that would be a breach of the agreement and that the dues-payers had to increase their monthly payments to cover the shortage.