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Re: Just getting out from under a timeshare unit that you no longer want (by Peter C.):

carvana wrote:

JohnD,

Some on this thread have suggested you may be guilty of criminal fraud and that in time you may face the bar of justice or at the very least face years of past due maintenance fees together with accumulated interest. There may be more facts than you have disclosed but what you have disclosed does not reveal a criminal intent on your part to defraud another. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of criminal law knows that intent is a key element in criminal fraud. Your statement of the facts indicates no criminal intent on your part.

You sold your timeshare for good and valuable consideration ($300) to a willing buyer. You signed a deed and mailed it to the buyer or the designated closing company. In due course you followed up with the county clerk and verified that the deed had been recorded and then contacted the resort and verified that you were no longer the owner of record. Your last step of due diligence was to contact your attorney and after having disclosed the facts you received a legal opinion that all is well with your end of the transaction. That is appropriate due diligence and in the absence of a criminal intent on your part or knowledge of a criminal intent on the part of your buyer, you have nothing to worry about in my opinion. If your attorney was duly licensed then it is no concern of yours that he/she may have missed some law school classes along the way to his degree and license.

The bottom line is that no one desparate to sell a timeshare should enter into a fraudulent transaction but I see no evidence of fraud on your part in the transaction you described.

C. Glenn

---------------------- Hello?

Yep, OK. On paper it appears JohnD sold his timeshare in good faith and thus is legally safe. But we all know this isn't the case. If the facts come out that JohnD conspired (ok, came to an agreement) with a "buying party" allowing him to sell his unit to a buying party he agreed would be set up specifically to own and never pay the mainenance with the specific intent to aid him in eliminating his obligation to pay his maintenance, those fact will show he had criminal intent.

Personally I doubt a resort would spend the time and money to prove this. It just costs too much relative to the value of the annual maintenance. It will cost less to repossess the unit and sell it to someone else. HOWEVER, if Warren is causing 10/15/25 units at a resort or a resort group to default, that's another matter. I think they'd spend more time on warren.