It's all well and good to say that you'd like timeshare contracts to be written in such a way that they can be "surrendered" but the reality is, there aren't surrender terms written in to them. What's written in to them is that once you sign on the dotted line and the rescission period expires, you're on the hook for the financial obligations and the only way out if you stop paying but can't/don't resell will most likely result in foreclosure proceedings against you. What's also written in to them is that if you don't satisfy your financial obligation, your financial burden shifts to the other owners.
What isn't written into them is anything that supports the notion that owners' costs should or will somehow correlate to how much a same interval can be had on any rental markets, or anything that supports the notion that a financial return can be had on any resale markets. TUGgers use those figures as value barometers but the timeshare developers sure don't - in fact they make it very clear in the contracts that value is measured in usage.
So again, we can hope for change that allows the contracts to be written differently but until they are I don't/won't support the idea that owners should be able to "surrender" their timeshares, because the end result is more of a burden on owners who do consider their obligations responsibly.
BALONEY! The contracts don't have to be written differently. -- Unless, of course, they CLEARLY disclose that you're on the hook forever. Even if you find the timeshare valueless.
If I buy a 24-month cell phone plan, it's clear that I can't get out of my contractual obligation without penalty within that period. The terms are stated in the contract in great big letters, and the salesperson is clear about it verbally. There is no cell phone contract that says I can't ever cancel it, though, due to my "contractual obligations" to the other members of the plan.
If you buy a timeshare, you're told you're buying something of lasting value, and the salespeople NEVER tell you that if you ever want to sell you may be lucky to get pennies on the dollar. Or that if, in the future, you decide this doesn't work for you, you won't be able to give up your timeshare to get out of the annual fees because you're buying into a "contractual obligation" to support the timeshare and the other owners.
If you lease an apartment, you have a contractual obligation. Again, it's for a certain term. And there are all sorts of rules in place to assist you if you want to get out of the lease, including the fact that the landlord has a duty to mitigate his loss by trying to find another tenant if you vacate the apartment before the end of the lease term.
If you buy a house, that's forever -- until you sell it. But you can't even get a mortgage without a licensed appraiser saying that the property is actually worth what you're paying for it. And on those occasions in those places where the real estate bubbles burst (as in Texas some years ago), people walked away from their houses and mortgages. There was no talk about their "contractual obligations" to support the lenders and their depositers, or the tax base in the community, or the schools who were relying on taxes, or the other members of the homeowner associations . . . Some of the banks failed. Many of the communities had financial problems for many years. Homeowner associations also failed, and some people whose homes would have retained value but for the masses of people walking away lost their equity, too.
The only penalty imposed on people who walked away was that they got a 1099 (to report on their taxes as "other income") for the difference between the mortgage they walked away from, and the actual value of the property. But even then, there were exceptions to the rule that this was taxable income.
This "contractual obligation" talk is pure crap IMO until and unless timeshare salespeople tell the absolute truth when they sell timeshares. 'Cause, like, THAT'S gonna happen!
What about the implicit obligation of the resort to keep its value?
When the timeshare industry actually requires its sales force to TELL THE TRUTH and make actual disclosure of the obligations and the downsides of owning a timeshare -- like be contractually obligated forever, even if you don't want the week anymore -- then, and ONLY then IMO can you talk about the owner's "obligation" to the resort.
Until that time, IMO, the resort has an obligation to make the timeshare week worth the maintenance fee AT THE VERY LEAST. Or to take it back.
SueDonJ seems to want to treat timeshares more as a partnership. Okay, then let's apply actual partnership laws. Such as ONE PARTNER can dissolve the partnership at any time. If the rest of the partners want to keep the partnership active, then they have to re-form the partnership. The only sticky part is the valuation of the dissolving partner's share of the partnership. That causes many court cases and FULL financial disclosure. If the partner wants to walk away with nothing, or the dissolving partner and the remaining partners agree on obligations, then no problem. But if the partnership wants to assess obligations on the dissolving partner ot which s/he doesn't agree, then it has to produce a great deal of evidence of value.
So let's apply those rules on timeshare owners who walk away AND ON TIMESHARE OWNERS WHO REMAIN via the HOA.
Fair's fair.
But this thread is really about the value of donated timeshare. How do I make this a separate thread?