Sell or not pay

Thanks the company Oak Plantation insists on a credit card before they will send me any information or documents to sign is this normal? As I have nothing to go no except a small mention of this option on a MF past due letter from their collections manager. I had to come to this site to find out what a deed in lieu of foreclosure was as I was unable to get much info from the company.

jamesm628 wrote:

Thanks the company Oak Plantation insists on a credit card before they will send me any information or documents to sign is this normal? As I have nothing to go no except a small mention of this option on a MF past due letter from their collections manager. I had to come to this site to find out what a deed in lieu of foreclosure was as I was unable to get much info from the company.

I don't know that I would give them my credit card number, however it seems they have you between a rock and a hard place. I've never heard of a situation like this before.

Have you actually talked to the resort about this offer? I would tell them that I would send the money by cashier's check and return the signed and notarized contract if everything in the contract is as they told you it would be. I don't see any reason why they would refuse this.

Message for stephenc107,

Did you cancel your credit card payments for your timeshare and if so what was the outcome. I also live in the UK and would like to know whether taking the same action as yourself will ruining my credit rating.

Thanks Morris

Morris: The Oak Planationi Kissimee confirmed offer so I went ahead and ordered the Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure documents which they charged $750.00 for legal costs on my visa before sending. I had my own lawyer notarize the document twice as they were very particular as to how it was filled out. You must make sure they give you specific instructions as laws in Florida are very specific as to who can sign where and how many times. I am still waiting for confirmation I am out of this nightmare as it is still with the Florida Lawyers Stanton-Gasdick awaiting completion. I have contacted the Oak Plantation but they have no information from their lawyers yet. You must follow up on them completing their obligation to take you off the hook as they couldn't care less about you and do not even give you confirmation they received the signed documents. I will keep you informed of my progress and final completion. This was the only offer I had which could get me out of the timeshare cesspool which continued to suck money out of me. Do you own research and decide for yourself if this is your choice as it may affect your credit rating in the USA.

Good Luck James

James,

Congratulations! I am pleased to read that you were able to negotiate a deed in lieu of a foreclosure to unload the unwanted timeshare. The $750 for closing fees is steep and far in excess of the actual expense incurred by the resort but still a bargain when one considers being free of future maintenance fees not to mention special assessments.

The purpose of the deed in lieu of a foreclosure is to protect your credit rating and it should not be adversely affected at all by the recordation of this deed.

Also, there should be no adverse impact on your credit for any past due maintenance fees because most resports to not report the payment or non-payment of maintenance fees to credit reporting agencies . Anyone who does not believe me should pull their own credit reports and you will see the resorts do not report the timely payment of your maintenance fees. If they do not report the good they cannot legally report the bad per Federal credit reporting laws. They report neither the good or they bad because the maintenance fee is not a personal obligation. Any doubters out there should pull their own credit reports and verify whether their maintenance fee payment record (good and bad) is reported.

carvana wrote:

Also, there should be no adverse impact on your credit for any past due maintenance fees because most resports to not report the payment or non-payment of maintenance fees to credit reporting agencies . Anyone who does not believe me should pull their own credit reports and you will see the resorts do not report the timely payment of your maintenance fees. If they do not report the good they cannot legally report the bad per Federal credit reporting laws. They report neither the good or they bad because the maintenance fee is not a personal obligation. Any doubters out there should pull their own credit reports and verify whether their maintenance fee payment record (good and bad) is reported.

Here we go again, I beg to differ with you on the above statement. If that was the case then millions of people would merely quit paying maintenance fees with no repercussions to their credit rating ..... maybe in a fantasy world. Paying maintenance fees is part of the obligation of owning a timeshare .... it's a bill like any other bill.

carvana wrote:

Also, there should be no adverse impact on your credit for any past due maintenance fees because most resports to not report the payment or non-payment of maintenance fees to credit reporting agencies . Anyone who does not believe me should pull their own credit reports and you will see the resorts do not report the timely payment of your maintenance fees. If they do not report the good they cannot legally report the bad per Federal credit reporting laws. They report neither the good or they bad because the maintenance fee is not a personal obligation. Any doubters out there should pull their own credit reports and verify whether their maintenance fee payment record (good and bad) is reported.

Quitting paying mainteance fees:

Timeshare is treated equal to real estate in the eyes of the law, and it follows the same rules and regulations as a homeowners deed. Your timeshare can foreclose in the same way as your home if you stop making payments - and this does not just mean payments on the principal balance, it also INCLUDES YEARLY MAINTENANCE FEES.

If your timeshare does go all the way through the foreclosure proceedings you will be notified by mail that your deeded timeshare will be part of a trustee’s sale or public auction. At the given date, time and place your timeshare will be sold at a sheriff’s auction to the highest bidder. The auction is public record and this transaction will be recorded and reported to the CREDIT BUREAUS, EFFECTIVELY RUINING YOUR CREDIT FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL YEARS. This strike on your credit score can make it difficult to finance a car, obtain a loan or even buy a home.

Jayjay,

As usual you state the obvious with a large mixture of error. The obvious is that a timeshare is an interest in real estate and a default on the purchase money mortgage on either will result in a foreclosure of the purchase money lien. That lien arises at the date of the financed purchase of a timeshare or home. It is extinquished and released when you pay your last mortgage payment whether on your home or your timeshare.

Your mixture of error and it is major is your statement that the timeshare can foreclose when you fail to pay your maintenance fees in the same way as they would if you failed to pay your home mortgage payments. You are totally wrong and it is amazing that you continually post this type of nonsense. A purchase money lien arises on your home when you buy the home on credit whereas there is no initial lien on your timeshare for the maintenance fees and it does not arise until the resort reduces the delinquent maintenance fees to a lien via court proceedings followed by a foreclosure. You can verify this statement by simply checking the lien records in the counties where you purchased timeshares as well as the county where you purchased your home. My guess is that you always paid your maintenance fees and if so there was never a lien recorded unlike your home where there was a lien recorded upon your purchase.

A foreclosure whether on your home or your timeshare is a ding on your credit record whereas a deed in lieu of a foreclosure protects your credit by preventing a foreclosure.

The maintenance fees are like the home owners fees in your neighborhood. There is no lien until there is judicial action. You are mixing apples (purchase money mortgage) with oranges (maintenance fees) and this leads you to a faulty conclusion.

James avoided any adverse impact upon his credit record by giving a deed in lieu of a foreclosure. He is to be commended for doing that.

You provide a valuable service when your repeatedly warn timeshare owners to not pay an upfront fee for the sale of their timeshare but you sure muddy the water when you get into an area where you obviously have limited knowledge.

My post above came from a real estate law site (but I suppose you know more than they do).

Try quitting paying your maintenance fees and see how far you get. You are doling out seriously wrong advice and I sincerely hope readers take heed.

Jayjay,

I categorically deny that your "post above came from a real estate law site" as it is obvious that you have at best paraphrased what you found. There is not one scintilla of truth to your allegation that a maintenance fee lien arises at the time of the timeshare purchase and is comparable to the vendor's lien that arises when one purchases their home. If you did get that off of a real estate law site then yes I do know more than they do.

My advice is and always has been that a failure to pay the annual maintenance fees can result in a foreclosure and that the foreclosure will adversely impact ones credit. What I have long advised on this site is to avoid the foreclosure by negotiating a deed in lieu of a foreclosure when a timeshare sale has proven unsucessful and financial circumstances prevent the payment of the maintenance fees. This deed back saves the resort money they would have spent in the foreclosure process and saves the credit of the timeshare owner.

I hereby challenge you to go to a qualified consumer law attorney in your area - not an internet site - and ask him/her the following questions:

1. Is the maintenance fee a personal obligation or "in rem"? Take copies of all the documents you signed at the time of the purchase of your timeshares.

The attorney after reviewing all documentation including the declaration will tell you the maintenance fee is not a personal obligation because you never personally signed a promise to pay the annual maintenance fees.

2. Then ask if the resort can legally pursuant to Federal Credit reporting laws report your failure to pay the annual maintenance fee to a national credit reporting organization.

You will be told that only personal obligations can be legally reported and that you have a cause of action against any rogue resort that illegally dings your credit for the failure to pay annual maintenance fees.

3. Then ask if there is any adverse impact upon your credit rating if you do work out a deal whereby you deed the timeshare back to the resort.

You will be told there will be none.

4. Lastly ask where the venue is for the litigation that is required to reduce your delinquent maintenance fees to a lien so that a foreclosure can follow.

You will learn that the venue is not in your home county but in the distant county where the timeshare is located. The expense of hiring a process server in your home county will add to the expense of the foreclosure and will be a factor encouraging the resort to negotiate a deed in lieu of a foreclosure

I welcome any validation from you secured from a qualified attorney that I am "doling out seriously wrong advice". If you can provide me validation then I will go quietly from this site and never post here again. Will you accept my challenge or just continue to hurl insults? I have made a successful living in this area of the law and I am confident that I am correct but I stand by my promise to leave if you prove me wrong.

I will not accept anything you pull from any of Redweek's competitors including TUG. I will accept only a brief written by a board certified attorney in consumer law using his/her letterhead in which the attorney responds to the questions posed above.

Your post above is full of contradictions.

BTW, I merely made up my previous post that I copied and pasted from a true REAL ESTATE LAW site on the internet (yeah right!)

I stand by all my advice concerning quitting paying maintenance fees and the repercussions to one's credit rating if they should do so. And everytime you post that it won't affect one's credit rating, I will always reply with the opposite advice.

Let it be up to the reader as to which way they choose to handle the situation.

One more time, read this very carefully, when buying a timeshare it's mandatory that you pay the annual maintenance fee .... that's part and parcel of the purchase whether it's spelled out or not in a contract.

You're evidently geekette on Tug giving the same bad advice you give here ..... see the responses to your advice in that post. I assume you meant quit paying maintenance fees instead of mortgage:

http://tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87567

geekette Guest

BBS Reg. Date: Jun 6, 05 Posts: 2,148 If the mortgage is paid off and you quit paying the mortgage, nothing will happen.

Jayjay:

I see you did not accept my challenge to prove me wrong with a written brief from a qualified consumer law attorney. You say my post was full of contraditions and yet you do not point out even one contradition.

Your myopic vision prevents you from understanding the difference between a mortgage on one's home and the maintenance fees on a timeshare. One is a choate lien and the other is not. Your inability to grasp this concept prevents a logical discussion with you.

I have always said that the failure to pay maintenance fees will ultimately lead to a foreclosure and the foreclosure will adversely impact the credit rating. What I have advised is that this negative impact can be avoided with a deed in lieu of a foreclosure.

If the timeshare had any value when it was sold you can bet the resort would take a deed back for $1 and resell the timeshare. Resorts that sell worthless timeshares certainly will initially refuse to take a deed back because they recognize the negative value. Try a deed back for $1 to a Marriott or a Hyatt and see how quickly they jump on it. The industry needs to weed out those parasites that sell worthless timeshares.

My advise to one with a worthless timeshare coupled with an inability to pay the maintenance fee is to work with the resort and negotiate a deed back even if you have to pay the resort to take it back as James (see post above on this topic) did.

Your advice on the other hand is that if stuck with a worthless timeshare just continue to pay the maintenance fees into infinity because those fees are the "bread and butter" of the parasitic resort that sold a piece of junk to you in a high pressure environment in the first place.

I sometimes read TUG but I have never posted on that site as I much prefer Redweek's layout and the ease with which one can navigate thorugh it. TUG is amateurish and Redweek is professional.

Jayjay, I must close by saying I am flying today to Aspen for the holidays and do not plan to access Redweek for at least the next two weeks. My failure to respond to your inanities does not mean I am not thinking of you but only that I am busy with my grandchildren.

I don't intend to physically go to an attorney and ask him/her such a stupid question. I got the answer on the real estate law website from which I quoted.

I always paid my maintenance fees (when we owned 9 timeshares) and I wouldn't have dreamed of being a deadbeat by not paying and leaving other owners to pick up MY slack EVEN IF I COULD HAVE. There's a thing called ethics and integrity in this life.

You and I will never agree on this subject, so it's time to stop beating a dead horse. TUGgers are the smartest people in the world when it comes to all phases of timesharing (as a whole they have experienced all there is to experience) .... I will take their word and the real estate law website before I would take your bad advice.

Anyway, this debate is in no way personal against you ..... we just don't agree and will never agree on this subject.

Have a nice holiday in Aspen.

carvana wrote:

I have always said that the failure to pay maintenance fees will ultimately lead to a foreclosure and the foreclosure will adversely impact the credit rating. What I have advised is that this negative impact can be avoided with a deed in lieu of a foreclosure.

The vast majority of resorts will not take a deed back in lieu of foreclosure or for any other reason.

Quote:

If the timeshare had any value when it was sold you can bet the resort would take a deed back for $1 and resell the timeshare. Resorts that sell worthless timeshares certainly will initially refuse to take a deed back because they recognize the negative value. Try a deed back for $1 to a Marriott or a Hyatt and see how quickly they jump on it. The industry needs to weed out those parasites that sell worthless timeshares.

It must not have been worthless if you bought it in the first place. Why would you pay good money for a worthless timeshare?

Marriott is not enforcing ROFR (Right of First Refusal) in this economy for many of their resorts. Marriott and other high end timeshares are selling for pennies on the dollar on Ebay. It's being discussed at this moment on Tug.

Quote:

I advise to one with a worthless timeshare coupled with an inability to pay the maintenance fee is to work with the resort and negotiate a deed back even if you have to pay the resort to take it back as James (see post above on this topic) did.

James' situation was rare and does not happen with the vast majority of resorts ...... he was lucky even if he had to pay the resort to take back his week.

Quote:

Your advice on the other hand is that if stuck with a worthless timeshare just continue to pay the maintenance fees into infinity because those fees are the "bread and butter" of the parasitic resort that sold a piece of junk to you in a high pressure environment in the first place.

It's not the resorts fault that you deem your timeshare worthless. Since you spent good money on it in the first place why is it now all of a sudden worthless ..... just because you can't sell it and you want out from under paying yearly maintenance fees?

I live in a community that is managed by an HOA (my husband is vice president). If we merely quit paying maintenance fees (yearly road and well fees) the HOA would hit us with a lawsuit in a NY minute and I wouldn't blame them. If it wasn't for our community's yearly HOA fees there would be no well maintenance (there are two wells) or road maintenance.

Last year lightning hit one well and shut it completely down. The well company had to come out and repair it at high cost. This is what maintenance fees pay for, to maintain a resort or a HOA managed neighborhood.

In this economy, we could say that our home was worthless since zero real estate is selling around here. Do we merely quit paying our yearly maintenance fees because our house wouldn't sell in this market. That's your rationalization .... if it cannot be sold, then it's worthless.

You seem to think that timeshares (just because they are a luxury purchase) aren't ruled by the same principles as anything else one purchases that has ongoing fees. This truly astonishes me.