<snip> TS especially Mexican timeshares including VIDA have been offering trade ins to overcome objections to buying. In the past they have been quite successful. Like other get out of your TS schemes they would try to offer it back to the developer and if that doesn't work give it to another company that sells on ebay starting at $1. If it doesn't sell they would deed it over to a dummy llc and then bankrupt (Viking Ship company). In the last 3-5 years HOA's have realized that is what is happening and have refused to transfer deeds to these companies. So the bottom line is if they can't find a legitimate new owner from your timeshare you are still the owner. Unless your contract specifically stated that your purchase depended upon the transfer, not just the money-which they really were never getting- then you now own 2 timeshares.
All of the above is absolutely true and accurate, to which I will simply add one
other course of action sometimes undertaken by (alleged) Mexican "trade-in" recipients of U.S. timeshares --- which is simply taking
no action at all and just letting the U.S. foreclosure process take its' own course upon the hapless U.S. resident who (mistakenly) thought that they had already
parted company with their U.S. timeshare ownership via "trade in". The Mexican "trade in" paperwork of course means
absolutely nothing here in the U.S. unless the Mexican recipient subsequently undertakes the active effort to lawfully change the ownership of the U.S. product
in the U.S. via established U.S. process (most commonly, the preparation and recording of a valid new deed in a valid new name, later actually acknowledged
and accepted by the U.S. resort).
A few years ago, I acquired (...and since sold off as a no-profit "wash") several decent, consecutive Snowbird weeks in SW FL, although of relatively low market value. Their owner (mistakenly) thought these weeks had been "traded-in" a year or so earlier in Cancun --- until he received the
following year's maintenance fee bills from the resort a year later. The trade-in recipient in Mexico had done absolutely nothing with the weeks, apparently content with just banking the money from the Mexican RTU product sale, toward which the "trade-in" had been (..ahem) "applied" (which is just a meaningless smoke and mirrors "paper game" anyhow, of course). We talked at length and at my invitation he researched my credentials to his satisfaction and comfort level. He signed over the weeks to me via a proper new deed and I paid the back maintenance fees and the resort transfer fee and handled the deed prep work and recording myself. He was ecstatic to finally be
really "out", legally and conclusively, and I was happy to acquire several consecutive SW FL Snowbird weeks at minimal cost, with little effort. It turned out that we didn't particularly like that particular SW FL area after all and we sold the weeks after just two years of use (sold at no profit, but profit was never our intent or motive in acquiring those weeks in the first place).
Moral: "Be wary of trade-ins of U.S. timeshares in Mexico". What exactly will "traded in" ultimately mean for you
later? --- quite possibly
nothing at all.
P.S. I do not claim to know who or what VIDA might be. In my personal experience described above, that particular name never arose.
