Maintenance fees

Maintenance fees - Are these paid yearly or monthly? Do they include yearly insurance? I'm REALLY new to this. What other costs are likely to be tagged onto the purchase price?

sheilah34 wrote:

Maintenance fees - Are these paid yearly or monthly? Do they include yearly insurance? I'm REALLY new to this. What other costs are likely to be tagged onto the purchase price?

The vast majority of maintenance fees are paid yearly and they likely rise each year, taxes (many are included in maintenance fees) and possible special assessments that owners pay for some sort of updating to the resort if the HOA does not have in their reserves to meet the expense.

BTW, I hope you're purchasing resale and not from a developer. You can save a ton of money by doing so and you get the same product.

If you're purchasing resale from someone on Redweek, normally the buyer is responsible for closing costs but it can be negotiated between buyer and seller.

sheilah34 asked: >> Maintenance fees - Are these paid yearly or monthly? Do they include yearly insurance? I'm REALLY new to this. What other costs are likely to be tagged onto the purchase price? ============================================

Maintenance fees are billed annually. As for "insurance", whatever policy the timeshare facility has in place is paid for from funds which are included within your annual maintenance fee. You have no individual insurance whatsoever in timeshare ownership, unless you count personal "trip cancellation" insurance which you might choose to take out on your own for personal travel. Those costs / coverages vary widely from one carrier to another.

You should be aware that "special assessments" occasionally arise in timeshare ownership. These are somewhat unpredictable (and always unwelcome) bills which are separate from and IN ADDITION TO annual maintenance fees. In coastal Florida, for example, hurricanes are simply a fact of life --- and some of them cause serious damage. Even well insured facilities still have huge "deductibles" on their insurance policies. When serious damages are sustained and cannot be fully paid for by insurance or from management company funds already on hand, owners must then make up the difference in the form of unwelcome "special assessments" to pay for the required repairs. Even far away from hurricane country, aging resorts eventually face major overhauls which result in "special assessments" to the owners, just to maintain the physical plant of the facility in good repair. Reserve funds on hand are not always adequate to achieve these repairs.

There are "closing costs" associated with a timeshare purchase. Generally, closing costs are around $300 if using a closing company (ALWAYS a good idea to do so) and closing costs are usually paid by the buyer. Resort transfer fees are an additional and separate expense to the buyer / new owner, generally ranging from zero to $400, but usually somewhere around $75.

I would NOT recommend that you consider purchasing ANY timeshare until you learn a whole lot more about timeshare. It's a lot easier to buy now than it ever will be to sell later, so don't just jump head first into the timeshare waters until you learn to swim well first. Read and learn. Then read and learn MORE before you even remotely consider getting out the checkbook. A particularly good site to acquire a solid timeshare education is http://www.tug2.net. RedWeek is a good site, but discussion forums are a relatively new development on RedWeek. With no disrespect to RedWeek intended, there are quite simply a lot more people with a whole lot more knowledge and experience on the Timeshare Users Group site mentioned above.

Read and learn. Then read and learn and research MORE before considering buying ANYTHING in timeshare. If you ultimately decide to buy as a well informed consumer, stay FAR away from overpriced developer-direct sales. Buy in the resale market and save lots of money. Good Luck.

ken1193 wrote:

sheilah34 asked: >> Maintenance fees - Are these paid yearly or monthly? Do they include yearly insurance? I'm REALLY new to this. What other costs are likely to be tagged onto the purchase price?

Maintenance fees are billed annually. As for "insurance", whatever policy the timeshare facility has in place is paid for from funds which are included within your annual maintenance fee. You have no individual insurance whatsoever in timeshare ownership, unless you count personal "trip cancellation" insurance which you might choose to take out on your own for personal travel. Those costs / coverages vary widely from one carrier to another.

You should be aware that "special assessments" occasionally arise in timeshare ownership. These are somewhat unpredictable (and always unwelcome) bills which are separate from and IN ADDITION TO annual maintenance fees. In coastal Florida, for example, hurricanes are simply a fact of life --- and some of them cause serious damage. Even well insured facilities still have huge "deductibles" on their insurance policies. When serious damages are sustained and cannot be fully paid for by insurance or from management company funds already on hand, owners must then make up the difference in the form of unwelcome "special assessments" to pay for the required repairs. Even far away from hurricane country, aging resorts eventually face major overhauls which result in "special assessments" to the owners, just to maintain the physical plant of the facility in good repair. Reserve funds on hand are not always adequate to achieve these repairs.

There are "closing costs" associated with a timeshare purchase. Generally, closing costs are around $300 if using a closing company (ALWAYS a good idea to do so) and closing costs are usually paid by the buyer. Resort transfer fees are an additional and separate expense to the buyer / new owner, generally ranging from zero to $400, but usually somewhere around $75.

I would NOT recommend that you consider purchasing ANY timeshare until you learn a whole lot more about timeshare. It's a lot easier to buy now than it ever will be to sell later, so don't just jump head first into the timeshare waters until you learn to swim well first. Read and learn. Then read and learn MORE before you even remotely consider getting out the checkbook. A particularly good site to acquire a solid timeshare education is http://www.tug2.net. RedWeek is a good site, but discussion forums are a relatively new development on RedWeek. With no disrespect to RedWeek intended, there are quite simply a lot more people with a whole lot more knowledge and experience on the Timeshare Users Group site mentioned above.

Read and learn. Then read and learn and research MORE before considering buying ANYTHING in timeshare. If you ultimately decide to buy as a well informed consumer, stay FAR away from overpriced developer-direct sales. Buy in the resale market and save lots of money. Good Luck.

Thank you very much for this info...this is a high pressure sale market. These timeshare resort places are nice until they sucker you...then they turn from nice to nasty. We are a victim of purchsing Timeshare in Kissimmee, Florida. Now we just got our first maintenance fee of $577 plus a club fee of $189.00...we can only stay at this Village one week annually, they even lie and choose the week for us....apart from the maintenance fee we are paying almost $350 monthly...if we were only told the truth by the sales representatives we wouldn't be in this trap..it is so horrible the way they lie and vitimize people during the tour..telling all the white collar lies then the resorts cover themselves with the contracts...most places allow 10 days to cancell they won't even tell you...you have to dig through the papers when you get home to find out the truth...after 10 days you are stuck with the ordeal...be very carefull people...it is not the way they tell you during the tours.....

sheilah34 wrote:

Maintenance fees - Are these paid yearly or monthly? Do they include yearly insurance? I'm REALLY new to this. What other costs are likely to be tagged onto the purchase price?

These timeshare resort representatives are nice until they sucker you...then they turn from nice to nasty. We are a victim of purchsing Timeshare in Kissimmee, Florida. Now we just got our first maintenance fee of $577 plus a club fee of $189.00...we can only stay at this Village one week annually, they even lie and choose the week for us....apart from the maintenance fee we are paying almost $350 monthly...if we were only told the truth by the sales representatives we wouldn't be in this trap..it is so horrible the way they lie and vitimize people during the tour..telling all the white collar lies then the resorts cover themselves with the contracts...most places allow 10 days to cancell they won't even tell you...you have to dig through the papers when you get home to find out the truth...after 10 days you are stuck with the ordeal...be very carefull people...it is not the way they tell you during the tours.....

mariannej10 has stated in part: >> ...most places allow 10 days to cancell they won't even tell you...<< ===============================================

As an important correction and clarification here, the right of contract rescission (cancellation) is actually a legal right, established (by law) throughout the entire United States. This "right to rescind" (cancel) is not something which is "granted" by any resort or any company -- it's THE LAW! That said, however, the time period deadline for cancellation varies from state to state, from a low of 3 days to a high of 10 days. Generally speaking, it's 5-7 days (Sundays don't count, but Saturdays do).