Original Message:
Re: First time renter in need of good advice - how to verify who I am renting from (by KC):
jamess304 wrote:Can you negotiate a price with the owner or is the price set in stone?
You can always ATTEMPT to negotiate the rental price with any advertising owner, but it might help to keep a few things in mind:
1. Every owner has annual maintenance fee obligations for each timeshare week they own. At the very least, owners want to meet (and preferably exceed) that maintenance fee amount in rental of owned week(s) which they can't or won't be using in any given year.
2. Most experienced owners who rent out weeks tend to know something about both the market demand and the availability for their particular week(s). Most owners will price their weeks accordingly, knowing that if they overprice the rental it simply won't get rented. Owner rental price will almost ALWAYS be well below the "rack rate" (the rate charged if renting directly from the resort). How much below that "rack rate" an owner might charge for a owner-direct rental is mostly determined by simple supply and demand --- and, of course, how much time an owner has to advertise and complete (and receive full advance payment for) a rental before the actual usage date.
Generally speaking, with a well informed and knowledgeable owner who has planned long in advance to advertise and rent out a week, you should probably expect to have to pay the advertised price --- or very close to it. Only for "last minute" (previously unplanned) owner-direct rentals will you likely encounter much flexibility in the advertised rental price.
3. ALWAYS make very sure that any advertised rental that you consider involves a week actually OWNED by the advertiser. Some people obtain weeks via "exchanges" with RCI or II --- and then attempt to rent out that "exchange" for profit. This practice is clearly prohibited by BOTH II and RCI and, if discovered, can result in denial of occupancy for the unfortunate would-be tenant (who has already paid in advance for the rental!) as well as the suspension or termination of the RCI or II membership for the would-be "landlord" --- who had no right to rent out a "exchange" week they don't even own in the first place.
Resorts will not (and they should not) ever PROVIDE owner information, but they will certainly at least CONFIRM an ownership if you, as a prospective renter, call the resort after already having the (alleged) owner name in hand FIRST. In other words, a resort will VERIFY information that you ALREADY have, but a resort won't PROVIDE or DISCLOSE owner name or any related information which you DON'T already have for verification before calling. Privacy laws require (as they should) resorts to protect owner information from unauthorized release to just anyone who might want it, for whatever reason.
Hope some of this helps prospective renters to be prepared, informed, smart and careful. Not everyone advertising timeshare rentals is honest --- to say the very least!