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Re: Getting rid of a time share. (by Carvan A.):

glenday2 wrote:

redbird wrote:

The rest of the story. I am the guy that asked the first question, How to get rid of a timeshare. We just returned from our time share in Florida. I went into the office and asked why I should pay a matainance fee of $1,265.00 on a week on a timeshare that I can't give away and I have tried. Or why I should give Sunterra $8,000.00, so they will give me 12000 points and pick up my matainance fees. (This is what they presented at what I was told was to be the owners meeting and not a sales presentation.) In the futurer than my fees will be only just over $1,000.00 for all the points and as all of know I will be able to probley get 4 weeks or more a year use if I convert to points and use them right. I don't want more timeshare time thank you. I have four weeks now. Here is what the manager at my timeshare told me why the need for the huge matainance fees. It seems that 20% of the weeks are not paying and because of the large deficit the people that pay have to bring the books up to date on the units that are not paying. Than when the 20% of the units are payed up and repossesed "Sunterra will take over the title and keep paying the maintainance fees. This sounds like in my opinion that Sunterra will be getting free units to sell more points on. Sunterra is building new units from the ground up just to sell points on and here they are just taking over these weeks after the loyal owners have paid till it hurts to clear the books on the defunct units. This has a funny smell to it. We haved owned these weeks for over 10 years and have always paid on time. Now it is our problem to pick up the deliquesce. I always felt that this resort was poorly managed but than what can one owner of two weeks do 1500 miles away. $1,268 per week in this resort amounts to over $65,000.00 Per unit week. I think you could build them new for that.

I agree all I can see if start filing a complaint with the attorney general in florida, then go to the consumer department, write the governor, however his staff realy does not care. I have written to channel 2 and asked them to investigate the illegal practices of TimeShare sales, and MF's. When you talk to these companies, they tell you it is a Mortgage, however you can not get a statement showing what you have paid, and your balance, then when you don't pay, they threaten to sue you and place a lien on your personal property. I am not a lawyer, but I know if you default on a Mortgage, there is no lien on personal property, you just lose you property which would be your time share, somehow these people make things really ugly. The good news is, they do not do things legally when it comes to using scare tactics. Remember one thing, they have their own in house banking, in house collection agency, and their in house attorney's. You on the other hand have the State government on your side and the FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION. Use them put them to work for you.

A prospective purchaser of a timeshare should do his/her due diligence before purchasing a timeshare. Sure, you will be offered incentives to purchase on the day of the presentation but don't do it. These incentives usually increase as you indicate a need to "sleep" on the deal. Your due diligence as a minimum should included the following:

1. Read the deed restrictions that govern the timeshare including any amendments. Request a copy and then verify that the copy given is like the one recorded in the deed records of the county where the timeshare is located. Oral promises mean nothing. The deed restriction together with amendments are all that matter.

2. Attend a meeting of the HOA (owners association) prior to purchasing. If you are barred from the meeting because you are not an owner, run away from the deal. At the meeting you will have an opportunity to mingle with other owners who will typically tell you the "good, the bad, and the ugly" about the timeshare. Learn about past MF increases and especially about prospective increases including special assessments. Remember the unit owners elect the Board of Directors who hire the management company whether it is Marriott, Hyatt, VRI, or whoever.

3. Increases in MF are provided by the deed restrictions and in no way are increases fraudulent per se. No state attorney general and no federal regulatory body will follow-up on a complaint that MFs are going up unless you can show that some individual or individuals are fraudulently padding their own pocket with the fees. This is because deed restrictions allow management to increase fees to cover increased costs. Most likely the fees are going up because they were intentionally kept low during the initial developer promotion in order to sell units with the expectation that they would increase of necessity after the units are all sold.

4. Remember, and this is very important, that the mortgage has nothing to do with MFs or special assessments. It is something you voluntarily entered into to finance your purchase of a timeshare. Certainly you should do your due diligence before signing an agreement to finance a timeshare purchase but again remember the mortgage terms are not governed by the deed restriction or the resort management team.

5. Remember that the default on a purchase money mortgage or upon the MFs will not result in an immediate lien upon your personal property. That is a lie just like the many you may have been told at the time of your purchase. Again, the mortgage and the MFs are two different items and are not related. A default on the mortgage will be governed by the terms of the mortgage and a default on MFs will be govered by the deed restrictions. Typically a default in a mortgage will result in a ding on your credit and a foreclosure of the timeshare. A typical default on the MFs will result in a series of increasingly hostile letters followed by collection calls. You can stop the calls with a cease and desist letter and collection calls following your letter will result in fines upon the collection agency imposed by the Federal Government. Finally, the resort will foreclose on the timeshare. Rarely, if ever, do they sue you even though you read volumes of material on this site aaying that they will. The reason they don't sue for a MF is that it is not a personal debt, that is, you never signed a promise to pay it. You will lose the property by not paying the MFs because the deed restrictions allow the HOA to take back the property upon a default in payment of the MFs. You say above that 20% of the units in a particular timeshare were abandoned by owners due to increasing MFs. I challenge you to go the the county were the property is located and find even one record of a suit for past due maintenance fees. You will find no suit for past due maintenance fees. Sure, you will find many foreclosures and even more deeds in lieu of foreclosure. To put a lien on your personal property the plaintiff (the resort) would have to sue you and recover a judgment which though some expense would be abstracted in the county of your residence to cloud the title to your personal and real property. It just doesn't happen. Still, the foreclosure will be a ding on your credit report for at least ten years and maybe more as it is a legal matter. The default on the mortgage will cloud your credit report for 7 years but legal matters such as jforeclosures remain on the report longer.

One key to success in purchasing a timeshare is doing your due diligence in advance. Timesshares are very easy to buy and extemely difficult to sell. In my opinion, the best out there are Hyatt and Marriott and even these resell for far less than the developer price and based on my monitoring on this site require months and even years to sell.