Just got off the phone with a Rep. I was not aware of this and wanted to inform everyone here. Westgate DOES NOT have a buy back deed in lieu of foreclosure program. They don't buy deeds back ever. According to this rep, financial hardship would only allow for a 2 month break in payments that would be added back towards the end of the payments.
How accurate is this information? Unless she was lying I guess it is accurate. So if anyone else on the forums ever asks. Wastegate WILL NOT buy back your deed. It's not even an option.
Westgate
does indeed accept some "
deedbacks" ("deebacks", to be very clear here, are entirely different from "buybacks"). Very few developers (maybe Marriott and a very few others) will ever consider a "buyback". Wastegate accepts deedbacks, but
only if the proposed "deedback" involves a "free and clear" ownership (i.e, associated loans are satisfied), with the account also fully paid up to date on maintenance fees (which yours clearly is not) and, last but not least, an additional gratuitous fee paid to Wastegate ($1,500, if I recall correctly).
None of that really matters to you however, since those "deedback acceptance" conditions are not relevant or applicable to
your current situation.
It is not too unusual for delinquent timeshare accounts to be handed off to hired third party collection agencies. Such outfits collect a percentage of any payments that they can manage to wrangle, cajole or harass from a delinquent account holder. In fact, there are a few collection agencies which openly advertise their "timeshare collection specialization" services, including in the publication
Timesharing Today.
If you intend to hold the line and pay
nothing more (a personal choice certainly available to you), default and foreclosure will inevitably follow and a negative credit report "hit" is a near certainty. That being said, it is also your personal decision whether you really want to pay another penny toward something of virtually
no value in the open resale market ---
even if it was fully paid off and completely current right now, today. That's surely a very difficult concept to accept and swallow; it certainly seems counter-intuitive to consider paying thousands of dollars
more for something which (even if paid off and owned free and clear and offered out in the open marketplace today) has essentially
zero attraction and / or resale value to others.
You might want to consider a brief consultation with a local attorney you trust, just to discuss and understand the impact of looming consequences if you decide to stick to your guns and pay Wastegate not another cent. You can, for example, exercise
some control over unwelcome collection calls.