Dear Ms Otarashvili, Mr Siradze and Mr Mepisashvili,
Dear Mr Tsabadze,
Dear ELT Group,

On October 28, at the 11th National Tourism Awards, Next Hospitality LLC received the award for Best Hospitality Real Estate Project of the Year for the Next White complex in Batumi. I own two apartments in that complex, 16-11 and 16-12, at 27 David Mamuladze Street, registered and unencumbered, with my co-ownership of the building's common property on the title. As I write, Next Hospitality has kept me out of the elevators of my own home for the 121st day, to collect a debt it set itself, charged without any contract, and whose basis it has not been able to identify despite repeated written requests. My wife and I left Georgia on July 9 and cannot return.

I learned of the ceremony the day before it took place. I chose not to write then: you would have had no time to check what I say, and I did not want to interfere with a decision on the strength of an unverified letter. I write now, when you can.

I am addressing the three of you together because each had a different part in this award. The organizers and the jury made the decision. Grant Thornton, by your own announcement, oversaw the process. ELT Group presented the award, and is itself a Batumi developer. I copy the director of Next Hospitality so that Next may correct any error in what follows.

What the award's winner has done, in order:

February 2025. Before my renovation could begin, Next's after-sales manager priced my use of the freight elevator, which I co-own, at US$2,028, and the access to my utility meters, already installed, at GEL 2,400. In her words: "The meter is already installed, but you won't be able to use it until you settle the outstanding amount." I paid GEL 8,105.98.

January 2026. Next's manager asked for my passport number and email, and the next day sent two contracts to sign, dated November 2024 and August 2025. One cites a passport number issued after the date it bears. He called them "a requirement under the current regulations"; the regulations were never named, by him or by Next's lawyer. Under the management agreement, Next would have taken 40% of rental income at a price it sets alone, with no guaranteed minimum. Under the service conditions, Next sets rules, fees and penalties unilaterally, charges US$3,000 for an owner's notice of termination against GEL 10 a day for its own breaches, may lock an owner out of the elevators over any debt it declares and cut his utilities for any violation Next finds "rough". I refused to sign both. Within the hour, Next charged me US$608 under the unsigned service conditions, retroactive to August 2025, in a building that, by its own lawyer's account, has not been commissioned.

July 2026. Next switched on a chip system on the elevators, which it had announced in the owners' chat nine months earlier, in three languages, as avoidable if owners paid their alleged debts. Until October 21, my chips were conditioned on signing a "receipt" containing the sentence "the Parties confirm that it contains no ambiguous provisions and they have no claims against each other"; Next confirmed in writing that the document waives nothing and refused in writing to remove the sentence. Since October 21, the chips are offered, but will be activated "once the outstanding debt has been paid". Other owners report the same: a mother sent up the stairs with her child after midnight and a manager shutting a door on an owner who asked why decisions were not discussed with residents.

Under the Law of Georgia on Homeowners' Associations, the elevators are the owners' common property (Article 5), every owner may use them (Article 7), functional modifications or transfer of use require the unanimous decision of all owners (Articles 6 and 10), and an unpaid contribution is pursued in court (Article 21) or registered against the apartment (Article 14), not enforced by lockout. That I know of since becoming an owner on November 13, 2024, no meeting of owners has ever been called at Next White. I have put the matter to the police, the Public Defender and the Prosecutor's Office; four months on, three bodies have registered my complaints and forwarded them to one another, and none has acted or engaged with the substance of the complaints.

Owners also report what the common areas look like under a company they cannot replace: cockroaches, dirt left in the entrance for a week, a manager stating that no cleaning schedule exists in any Next building, a car damaged in the parking lot while security did nothing, and a refusal of CCTV footage to an owner who suspected his apartment had been entered. In Next Apartments, another building of the group, an owner filmed mice and others report them inside apartments.

The category is Hospitality Real Estate Project. The project’s real estate is owned by people like me, on registered titles. Your methodology this year added a mystery-guest assessment by independent international experts, and a guest at Next White gets a chip from reception and rides up. An owner who disputes a charge climbs. By its design, the assessment could not see the conduct I describe, and I do not suggest anyone concealed it from you. I suggest that it was outside what you looked at, and that the award, read by a buyer, says otherwise.

I would be grateful for answers to the following.

To the organizers and the jury:
1. What did the evaluation examine regarding a nominee's relationship with the buyers of its units: the contracts they are asked to sign, the management of common property, the setting and collection of service fees?
2. Were any of the facts above before the jury when it decided this category?
3. What is the award's procedure when documented conduct of a winner toward the buyers of its project comes to light after the ceremony?

To Grant Thornton:
4. What did your oversight of the process cover: the integrity of scoring and voting, or also the substance of what nominees submitted about themselves? Does Grant Thornton stand behind "Best Hospitality Real Estate Project of the Year" as a finding about the project, or only behind the procedure that produced it?

To ELT Group:
5. On October 5, I sent ELT Group, with five other Batumi developers, a questionnaire on exactly these questions: whether buyers must sign a management contract, who manages the common property, who sets the fee, how it is collected from owners who dispute it, and whether access to elevators or utilities is ever restricted. The deadline is November 4, and every answer and every silence will be published. ELT Group has presented an award in this category to another Batumi developer. Its own answers would tell buyers what the presenter of that award considers normal.

Everything above is documented, with Next's own messages, the contract drafts, the registry extracts and the statutes, in English, Russian, Georgian and Portuguese:

https://next-dossier.ar.io/

Every statement cites its source. If anything in it is wrong, show me reasoning and evidence and I will correct it; that invitation extends to Next. I record my correspondence on this matter in the dossier, and this letter and any reply to it will be recorded there too, in full.

I would appreciate a reply within 14 days, by November 12. I am reachable at lfsxs@mailbox.org, on Telegram and Signal; I do not take calls or SMS.

With regards,
Luís Fernando Schultz Xavier da Silveira
Owner, apartments 16-11 and 16-12, Next White, Batumi
https://next-dossier.ar.io/en/person/me.html