Donate your timeshare

Hi, I learned from another member about www.donateforacause.org since I had asked on a different forum about charities.

If you have a paid up timeshare with no loan, used it enough and feel it's time to move on, then this may work out. The people evaluate your timeshare for its saleability first and then contact you after you fill out their online form. I'm trying it out since selling a timeshare is next to impossible these days.

ecefola wrote:

Hi, I learned from another member about www.donateforacause.org since I had asked on a different forum about charities.

If you have a paid up timeshare with no loan, used it enough and feel it's time to move on, then this may work out. The people evaluate your timeshare for its saleability first and then contact you after you fill out their online form. I'm trying it out since selling a timeshare is next to impossible these days.

Good information, but lacking in some very important details. More specifically, depending on the marketability of the individual timeshare being offered, the "donor" may be required to pay DFAC about $1,200 (thereby enabling DFAC to pay maintenance fee bills while they attempt to sell the timeshare). For a "higher demand / value" timeshare week this fee will be waived, but I believe that donors still pay the closing costs in any case to transfer ownership.

Donate for a Cause is certainly a legitimate and reputable entity, but even "donating" is not free and will still cost the donor some money. Also, it should be noted that DFAC maintains a list of timeshare facilities whose weeks they will NOT accept under ANY circumstances.

There are many of us who want to be rid of our timeshares as they appear to have no value and we keep paying maintenance fees. A cost of transfering the title out of our names would be recouped in a few years. That may be a reasonable return on investment. That is, if the title is transferred so we have no further costs.

georgei30 wrote:

A cost of transfering the title out of our names would be recouped in a few years. That may be a reasonable return on investment. That is, if the title is transferred so we have no further costs.

Perhaps. The ticklish yet critically important detail remains absolutely ensuring that the transfer is actually COMPLETED by the official recording of a new, valid deed in the name of a new owner. Until and unless that specific step occurs, YOU remain the legal owner. This is precisely why signing a mere "Power of Attorney" is a dangerous and very expensive risk, on which there might very well be absolutely no future "return" (and much worse, no actual transfer of ownership).

While it's certainly true that many timeshares currently have no market value, I still think it makes more sense to try to GIVE it away (TUG has a "Bargain Basement" section, for example). Even if you have to give it away for free and pay all of the closing costs yourself, paying out $300 still makes a lot more numerical sense to me than paying out $3,000+. But, to each his / her own, I guess...

RedWeek also has a bargain timeshare resale area, http://www.redweek.com/featured/bargain-timeshare-resales