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Getting rid of a time share. (by R P.):

julias32

redbird wrote:

How does one get rid of a timeshare that we no longer use and can't sell for just one maintainace fee or less. Regarding "Timeshare Relief"-- We owned a timeshare in New Orleans (and love New Orleans) but could not visit each year. Because of Katrina, unfortunately the desire to visit there had declined at the time. We were not successful in renting out our booked week or selling the floating week, so we used "Timeshare Relief" to rid ourselves of it. We did pay over $2,000 for this and are now glad we did. What we sold to them was not deeded to Timeshare Relief. The company did what they said they'd do for us: legally took it off our hands using a Timeshare closing service. The IRS told me that you cannot write off a timeshare loss unless you rented it out a good percentage of the time (I don't know the exact percentage), so we did not claim it as a writeoff. I definitely don't think this is a great idea for timeshare owners, as it probably puts a lot of rental weeks on the market competing with other deeded owners who are trying to rent weeks they cannot use.

We also owned a timeshare week at Hotel De Eau l' Vive in New Orleans. When we moved to the mountains of NC, we sold ALL of our timeshares including the one in New Orleans .... right after that Katrina hit.

I am so thankful we sold it before the hurricane and the advent of postcard companies that sell timeshares for $1 on Ebay (there were no such entities when I sold our timeshares). I probably couldn't give my timeshares away now (9 owned over the years) and would probably have to pay a postcard company to take them off my hands or be indebted to those resorts forever (maintenance fee/special assessment ... horrors indeed).

P.S. Just checked Ebay's completed timeshare auctions and many are selling for 1 penny .... this definitely devalues ALL timeshares.