Advice needed for spouse of deceased partner. Sell, give away, surrender?

[cynder]

My brother recently passed away and after long consideration, my sister in law would like to offload their jointly owned Wyndham timeshare. They have 4 contracts with a total of 1.5M points. Current maintenance about $850/month. Two contracts are UDI and two are UDI/Recip ARP. One is presidential reserve Canterbury (worth 1M points) and three are Access (combined total of 500k points). One of these is recip at Kingsgate and the other two are recip anywhere. Sorry if this is not making sense. I am pulling this from the contract info in their Wyndham account, but I'm really not sure what most of it means.

I have power of attorney for her and have agreed to help her with this, but I have zero personal experience with time shares. I have been reading up on these forums and it seems that Wyndham is not so awful to deal with as some others, but it isn't clear to me whether the Wyndham CE program is available to her (based on the sticky). I also see people trying to sell and give away Wyndham time shares in the marketplace. My goal is to make this as painless for her as possible (I realize that she will still have to sign some papers even though I have PoA). Obviously would be great to recoup some money if possible.

Are the people looking to sell their Wyndham TS on marketplace just wishful thinkers or is that a viable option for us?

Regardless of whether we sell/give this away privately or surrender back to Wyndham, is this something we can take on ourselves or do we need a lawyer? I consider myself to be fairly savvy (after all, I never bought one of these myself ), but if even savvy people need a lawyer in this situation, we'll go that way.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

[b2bailey]

Definitely no attorney needed.
We have several members who can advise you.

My Wyndham membership was a 'gift' from someone on tug a few years ago.
I paid closing and transfer fees.

 

[Shiba]

The Canterbury contract has value. It has one of the lowest fees in the Wyndham portfolio. You should be able to sell this one and have the buyer pay all fees.

Take a look at sold listings on Ebay and specifically look at Canterbury to get an idea what is worth.

Sorry for the loss of your brother. You can take it on yourselves, use LT Transfers and it will be painless. For a nominal fee they help with paperwork between buyers/sellers and Wyndham. The only issue I see might be the documentation needed to have your brother taken off the deed with Wyndham. Not sure if it can be done simultaneously with a sale.

 

[cynder]

The Canterbury contract has value. It has one of the lowest fees in the Wyndham portfolio. You should be able to sell this one and have the buyer pay all fees.

Take a look at sold listings on Ebay and specifically look at Canterbury to get an idea what is worth.

Sorry for the loss of your brother. You can take it on yourselves, use LT Transfers and it will be painless. For a nominal fee they help with paperwork between buyers/sellers and Wyndham. The only issue I see might be the documentation needed to have your brother taken off the deed with Wyndham. Not sure if it can be done simultaneously with a sale.

Thanks for the reply. Should I take this to mean that we need to sell the contracts separately, or could we try to bundle the other three with the canterbury? Or would that just make the canterbury impossible to sell?

I just looked at ebay and don't see any active Canterbury, but I did find two recently sold. If value is proportional to points, then hers may be worth $6k. Those two were sold by timeshareconsultants_1, which I assume is a broker rather than the owner. When I look at active listings, I see other sellers such as timeshare_cures and timesharepro. Is there place to find which are the best brokers?

 

[cynder]

Definitely no attorney needed.
We have several members who can advise you.

My Wyndham membership was a 'gift' from someone on tug a few years ago.
I paid closing and transfer fees.

thanks for the quick reply. Is there a way for me to identify/contact the helpful members, or just wait til one of them hopefully replies to this thread?

 

[b2bailey]

thanks for the quick reply. Is there a way for me to identify/contact the helpful members, or just wait til one of them hopefully replies to this thread?

I would wait to see if they post.
In regard to bundling for a sale -- probably not. Most would want a smaller Monthly Maintenance Fee, less than $850.
For example, my Wyndham points have a MF less than $150/month.
I'd suggest selling Canterbury as a first step; give away others; lastly, inquire what Wyndham would take back.

 

[Jan M.]

This is an amazing account! Is there no one in the family who would like to take it over? It could be shared with other family members or in-laws if it's too much for just one person/couple to handle financially.

 

[cynder]

This is an amazing account! Is there no one in the family who would like to take it over? It could be shared with other family members or in-laws if it's too much for just one person/couple to handle financially.

Thanks very much for the reply. Please forgive my naivete, what makes this an amazing account? Is it the location, the total number of points, or the ratio of MMF/points favorable (I had the impression that it was not)? Their kids are too young to take it on as a shared project, and no one in the extended family is in a financial position to take on those MMFs. Is it possible to make it cost neutral by selling individual trips on the market?

 

[paxsarah]

The maintenance fees on Canterbury are highly desirable. The Access is meh on that front. Even if you were to streamline the account by getting rid of the Access contracts, they’d still have Founders VIP and Presidential Reserve privileges, and come close to cutting the maintenance fees in half. [Edit: I looked it up and I think with the Canterbury alone it should be around $450/month.] Founders VIP doesn’t transfer on resale but is preserved by keeping it in the immediate family.

 

[cynder]

The maintenance fees on Canterbury are highly desirable. The Access is meh on that front. Even if you were to streamline the account by getting rid of the Access contracts, they’d still have Founders VIP and Presidential Reserve privileges, and come close to cutting the maintenance fees in half. [Edit: I looked it up and I think with the Canterbury alone it should be around $450/month.] Founders VIP doesn’t transfer on resale but is preserved by keeping it in the immediate family.

Thanks for the reply. To make sure I'm clear, the suggestion would be to sell (or more likely surrender?) the 3 access accounts and then wait a bit on the Canterbury to see whether she gets enough use out of that alone to justify the $5k year in MMFs; if that needs to go, then it should be relatively east to sell?

 

[Sandi Bo]

I suggest referencing the sticky at the top of this forum on giving back your unwanted Wyndham. It doesn’t hurt to call and confirm what they will take back. My guess is they’ll take back all of what you have. I’m not sure if they’ll take back only the access Anyone know if that’s all or nothing? The program names changed there’s different variations to it. I would call and find out the specifics regarding your sisters account. My guess is if you want to get rid of the access and keep the Canterbury, which sounds pretty inviting, and Wyndham will take back the access, that’s gonna get rid of it fastest and cheapest for you, but I’m not sure that they’ll only take back a portion when you use their program.

Another thing I would look into is if you have points this year, try not to lose them. Because you have a VIP account, you can point deposit them to next year or 2027 or both. You don’t have to do that until December 31, but I personally would either use them or point deposit them forward if you’re keeping the account. You paid for them. That would also give you some time to get a better handle on how much use family might use it, so is it worth keeping? I understand all the while you’re paying maintenance fees and that is costly as well.

My Siblings and I inherited my dad’s VIP founders’s account. I’m sure today he is absolutely tickled pink at how much we use it. All siblings and many grandchildren are on the account, four people (owners) used it this past weekend. I never imagined people would use it this much (this past weekend I had sisters in Newport, a daughter in New Orleans and a brother in Florida, we get around).

You sound like you’re getting a really good handle on this, it’s also a lot to take In. Great that you are posting here, hopefully you feel comfortable continuing to do so. And so awesome you can help your sister out. Good luck with everything.

Oh, as far as the Kingsgate reciprocal whatever, I have never used any of our reciprocal benefits, I don’t use any of our advanced reservation privileges to speak of. Almost everything we do is last minute 60% off.


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[Sandi Bo]

I suggest referencing the sticky at the top of this forum on giving back your unwanted Wyndham. It doesn’t hurt to call and confirm what they will take back. My guess is they’ll take back all of what you have. I’m not sure if they’ll take back only the access. Anyone know if that’s all or nothing? The program names change, there’s different variations to it. I would call and find out the specifics regarding your sisters account. My guess is if you want to get rid of the access and keep the Canterbury, which sounds pretty inviting, and Wyndham will take back the access, that’s gonna get rid of it fastest and cheapest for you, but I’m not sure that they’ll only take back a portion when you use their program.

Another thing I would look into is if you have points this year, try not to lose them. Because you have a VIP account, you can point deposit them to next year or 2027 or both. You don’t have to do that until December 31, but I personally would either use them or point deposit them forward if you’re keeping the account. You paid for them. That would also give you some time to get a better handle on how much use family might use it, so is it worth keeping? I understand all the while you’re paying maintenance fees and that is costly as well.

My Siblings and I inherited my dad’s VIP founders’s account. I’m sure today he is absolutely tickled pink at how much we use it. All siblings and many grandchildren are on the account, four people (owners) used it this past weekend. I never imagined people would use it this much (this past weekend I had sisters in Newport, a daughter in New Orleans and a brother in Florida, we get around).

You sound like you’re getting a really good handle on this, it’s also a lot to take In. Great that you are posting here, hopefully you feel comfortable continuing to do so. And so awesome you can help your sister out. Good luck with everything.

Oh, as far as the Kingsgate reciprocal whatever, I have never used any of our reciprocal benefits, we don’t use any of our advanced reservation privileges to speak of. Almost everything we do is last minute 60% off.

Another consideration, if you do sell or give back, you pay maintenance until the transfer is complete, even if it’s Wyndham taking it back. Although it will be a shorter timeline using Wyndham.

If you sell to another party, and the transfer happens the second half of the year the current use year points typically don’t transfer. So it’s wise to use your points for this year and transfer the beginning of next year, in my opinion.

There are a lot of squishy rules with Wyndham. You do your research make your best. Guess on what’s going to happen and then hope that what you expected is the final outcome. They are not consistent with what they do.

And I’ll second or third or whatever that number is, the recommendation to use LT Transfers if you do sell on your own. They are honest and reasonable and know what they’re doing. They’ll take good care of you.

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[paxsarah]

Thanks for the reply. To make sure I'm clear, the suggestion would be to sell (or more likely surrender?) the 3 access accounts and then wait a bit on the Canterbury to see whether she gets enough use out of that alone to justify the $5k year in MMFs; if that needs to go, then it should be relatively east to sell?

That's the approach I'm thinking of, yes. You'd cut quite a bit down on the maintenance fees and somewhat on the points, but it would be a really usable account.

I’m not sure if they’ll take back only the access Anyone know if that’s all or nothing?

Yes, Certified Exit will take back a subset of contracts - I've done it multiple times. The only time it was all or nothing is when someone was entering Limited Edition for 3 free years of use, which they're no longer offering.

 

[WManning]

I just gave back a 49,000 Canterbury deed a few weeks back. It wasn't very feasible to have someone pay the $399 transfer fee along with the 6 month time frame to transfer

 

[Shiba]

This is an amazing account! Is there no one in the family who would like to take it over? It could be shared with other family members or in-laws if it's too much for just one person/couple to handle financially.

I am a resale owner, so I have never bothered to look at the benefits of VIP accounts. If the family keeps the 1 million Canterbury and assume it's a developer purchase what are the benefits for the family? What level of VIP is this and it's benefits? If the widow doesn't want to keep it, but brother takes the account will the VIP benefits transfer to him or is he better off being added to the deed?

The Club Wyndham Access accounts have a high maintenance fee compared to the Canterbury account and can be hard to give away. Your sister in law should try to see if Wyndham will take it back by Certified Exit. I would NOT give Wyndham back the Canterbury account whatsoever. I would take Sandi Bo's advice about using or banking your current points while a decision is made. FYI the maintenance fee is $4.62/1000 points for Canterbury PR while the CWA maintenance fee is $8.13/1000 points.

 

[cynder]

I suggest referencing the sticky at the top of this forum on giving back your unwanted Wyndham. It doesn’t hurt to call and confirm what they will take back. My guess is they’ll take back all of what you have. I’m not sure if they’ll take back only the access Anyone know if that’s all or nothing? The program names changed there’s different variations to it. I would call and find out the specifics regarding your sisters account. My guess is if you want to get rid of the access and keep the Canterbury, which sounds pretty inviting, and Wyndham will take back the access, that’s gonna get rid of it fastest and cheapest for you, but I’m not sure that they’ll only take back a portion when you use their program.

Another thing I would look into is if you have points this year, try not to lose them. Because you have a VIP account, you can point deposit them to next year or 2027 or both. You don’t have to do that until December 31, but I personally would either use them or point deposit them forward if you’re keeping the account. You paid for them. That would also give you some time to get a better handle on how much use family might use it, so is it worth keeping? I understand all the while you’re paying maintenance fees and that is costly as well.

My Siblings and I inherited my dad’s VIP founders’s account. I’m sure today he is absolutely tickled pink at how much we use it. All siblings and many grandchildren are on the account, four people (owners) used it this past weekend. I never imagined people would use it this much (this past weekend I had sisters in Newport, a daughter in New Orleans and a brother in Florida, we get around).

You sound like you’re getting a really good handle on this, it’s also a lot to take In. Great that you are posting here, hopefully you feel comfortable continuing to do so. And so awesome you can help your sister out. Good luck with everything.

Oh, as far as the Kingsgate reciprocal whatever, I have never used any of our reciprocal benefits, I don’t use any of our advanced reservation privileges to speak of. Almost everything we do is last minute 60% off.


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Thanks very much for your comments and advice.

 

[Floridaman76]

Canterbury contracts have value, but being 1 million points is going to limit the potential buying pool. I have seen 1 million point contracts go for "low thousands".

Because no matter how you slice it, 1 million points is like 10 grand in Maintenance fees per year. Not many people have much of a need to use that much.

If it was two 500k contracts it would have more value. But it's not. The access contracts have zero value.

 

[paxsarah]

Because no matter how you slice it, 1 million points is like 10 grand in Maintenance fees per year. Not many people have much of a need to use that much.

I mean, the whole point of Canterbury is that when you slice it, maintenance fees on 1M PR points is only $5,450 per year.

 

[Sandi Bo]

And it is a PR account. While the VIP benefits won't transfer to a 3rd party purchaser, the PR benefits will (that is my understanding). That's worth something, too.

Excellent points to consider (it is alot of points and significantly less than average maintenance fees on the Canterbury. One has to wonder how someone could make such a great purchase on the PR portion and significantly more expensive purchase on the CWA (kind of the cream of the crop and the worst of it (totally my opinion) at the same time). Great sales person, I would guess.

Back to certified exit... it has been called many things and it changes (in name and what is offered, there is certainly an evolution). I believe it was originally called Ovations and later renamed Certified exit. Prior to Ovations there was a program called Pathways, Ovations, Certified Exit, Legacy, come to mind. Pathways was something marketed when you made your purchase - it would be worth making sure OP's brother-in-law does not have that. I'm guessing offered 2015-ish era and if they had that, Wyndham would pay OP's sister 20% of the original purchase price. Again, things to check on (and warranting a call to certified exit to see what the account is eligible for from Wyndham directly).

VIP levels have changed, OP's sister should be grandfathered into the 1M level to qualify for Platinum. Adding the 500K of CWA makes it a Founders account (and 60% off within 60 days versus 50% with Platinum (that's the only great benefit I can think of to being a Founder). In 2020 Founders was introduced and the Platinum points required raised to 1.1M. OP's sister should be grandfathered into the 1M level (if she gets rid of the CWA) and also unlimited housekeeping. Those 2 things are significant to make sure they stay in place (if the CWA is sold off).

 

[paxsarah]

OP's sister should be grandfathered into the 1M level to qualify for Platinum.

1 million PR points automatically grants Founders level.

 

[cynder]

And it is a PR account. While the VIP benefits won't transfer to a 3rd party purchaser, the PR benefits will (that is my understanding). That's worth something, too.

Excellent points to consider (it is alot of points and significantly less than average maintenance fees on the Canterbury. One has to wonder how someone could make such a great purchase on the PR portion and significantly more expensive purchase on the CWA (kind of the cream of the crop and the worst of it (totally my opinion) at the same time). Great sales person, I would guess.

Back to certified exit... it has been called many things and it changes (in name and what is offered, there is certainly an evolution). I believe it was originally called Ovations and later renamed Certified exit. Prior to Ovations there was a program called Pathways, Ovations, Certified Exit, Legacy, come to mind. Pathways was something marketed when you made your purchase - it would be worth making sure OP's brother-in-law does not have that. I'm guessing offered 2015-ish era and if they had that, Wyndham would pay OP's sister 20% of the original purchase price. Again, things to check on (and warranting a call to certified exit to see what the account is eligible for from Wyndham directly).

VIP levels have changed, OP's sister should be grandfathered into the 1M level to qualify for Platinum. Adding the 500K of CWA makes it a Founders account (and 60% off within 60 days versus 50% with Platinum (that's the only great benefit I can think of to being a Founder). In 2020 Founders was introduced and the Platinum points required raised to 1.1M. OP's sister should be grandfathered into the 1M level (if she gets rid of the CWA) and also unlimited housekeeping. Those 2 things are significant to make sure they stay in place (if the CWA is sold off).

Thanks for all this feedback. I understand most of what you said, but I'm certain that I'm missing some important nuances. Would it be okay for me to send you a DM?

 

[Sandi Bo]

Thanks for all this feedback. I understand most of what you said, but I'm certain that I'm missing some important nuances. Would it be okay for me to send you a DM?

Sure, no problem!

 

[Sandi Bo]

1 million PR points automatically grants Founders level.

Thanks for pointing that out. Makes getting rid of the CWA all the more appealing! Also, what do you think would happen if a 3rd party bought it (thus it becomes resale). I'm curious what benefits on the account look like for 1M PR points?