Transfer of ownership with Vistana

[WahooWah]

I have a client who closed escrow on a WKORV purchase on February 14. They called Vistana today and Vistana's reservation system still does not reflect the transfer 40 days after close of escrow. It typically takes about 28 days for the transfer to be processed.

Is anyone else experiencing this kind of delay with Vistana?

 

[WahooWah]

Now I understand from escrow that there is a 6-8 week delay on transfers with no explanation from Vistana.

 

[DeniseM]

There are several steps that have to be taken to transfer the deed, before Vistana ever sees it - these steps are carried out by the title company - not Vistana. That is usually where the delay occurs.

What title company are they using?

Has the new owner received a stamped copy of the deed from the title company, indicating that the new deed has been registered with the county records office and it has been sent to Vistana?

 

[buzglyd]

I think mine was about 6 weeks. I got notification while I was in Mexico last week.

The only thing that hasn't happened is Interval setup. Apparently I will receive mail/email from II with a code for the corporate account.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

FYI...4 weeks and still waiting.

 

[buzglyd]

I don't have usage until 2019 so I got my handled in plenty of time. 2018 vacations are handled including just returning from Playa del Carmen.

 

[dioxide45]

If you have a copy of the recorded deed, you can actually email it yourself. Of course you may end up having to pay the $25 fee if you already paid it with your closing costs or if the seller was paying it. I find that most often, these delays are because of the closing company and not Vistana. Our last transfer only took a few days after I emailed the deed in myself.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

They have had our deed in hand from the closing company as of 4 weeks ago. CSR said it will close "in a couple of weeks." No explanation given for the delay.

This would not be so painful if this transaction had not started 6.5+ months ago! (Crickets from my broker on trying to assist)

 

[pacman777]

They have had our deed in hand from the closing company as of 4 weeks ago. CSR said it will close "in a couple of weeks." No explanation given for the delay.

This would not be so painful if this transaction had not started 6.5+ months ago! (Crickets from my broker on trying to assist)

I had called and talked to Vistana title dept about some purchases and they said they were running 4 weeks behind of when they receive the paperwork from the title company. Must be a lot of transactions happening around year end.

 

[seagila]

They have had our deed in hand from the closing company as of 4 weeks ago. CSR said it will close "in a couple of weeks." No explanation given for the delay.

A recent WKV week I purchased was recorded with the county on 02/22/18. It showed up online on my Vistana account on 03/26/18. Not sure if that timeline is typical these days, but hopefully your new week shows up in your account soon.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

WooHoo! Received notice that the account has been transferred (31 days) but when I tried to link to a Vistana online account we set up to speed access, it did not link. The CSR said it should take another week to be entered into the system. Do they set up a duplicate online account at that time?

FWIW...The CSR used the word "unauthorized account" to denote that we were resell buyers - he said that's their internal term for all resale buyers...certainly not a very friendly welcome to Vistana system given it is the "unauthorized accounts" that pay the same hefty annual maintenance fees, and keep their resorts solvent when owners bail.

But no matter what they call us, I will simply smile all the way to the bank knowing that we saved tens of thousands on the purchase price for the same beautiful resort.

 

[dioxide45]

WooHoo! Received notice that the account has been transferred (31 days) but when I tried to link to a Vistana online account we set up to speed access, it did not link. The CSR said it should take another week to be entered into the system. Do they set up a duplicate online account at that time?

FWIW...The CSR used the word "unauthorized account" to denote that we were resell buyers - he said that's their internal term for all resale buyers...certainly not a very friendly welcome to Vistana system given it is the "unauthorized accounts" that pay the same hefty annual maintenance fees, and keep their resorts solvent.

But no matter what they call us, I will simply smile all the way to the bank knowing that we saved tens of thousands on the purchase price.

If your new week was mandatory, it usually gets setup wrong. They don't reset the VSN number associated with the week and it will still have the prior owners VSN number associated with it. You can get this fixed. Take a look at post #44 of this thread. You need to call Program Administration. Not just Owner Services.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Thanks, @dioxide45 we are mandatory and our contract number is the same as prior owners. Will call program management. Is there a good number to reach them?

 

[DeniseM]

You can reach the title office here:

Title Dept.
You can email or FAX your new (recorded) deed to Starwood yourself-
Phone 1-800-729-8246 ext. 62291
Fax 1-407-418-7211
Email to send deeds to - titlechanges@vistana.com

To reach Owner Resolution Services, call the regular number and ask for Owner Resolution Services - however, you can expect the entry level phone person to either try to help you with something that is above their pay grade, or to tell you that you can't talk to Owner Resolution Services - you may have to be firm, or hang up and call back

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Thanks @dioxide45 and @DeniseM. I called in again this morning and was forwarded when I said "Owner Resolution Services" to "Owner Services." I spoke with a very nice rep who was able to help me connect my account. Because we are under a trust we had to use LastName = lastname, TRUSTEE format. I had only been entering our lastname.

Our mandatory Staroptions have not shown up but he said they will show up 60 - 90 days after next week. New II membership will also show up in that timeframe. Apparently we have a 10 day recission period even though we bought resale so that is why we have to wait until next week. Very curious, I guess if we wanted to back out now, we could...not sure if the property would revert to the developer or to the seller?

HUCA works. Tuggers are awesome as I would have been waiting for something to happen that would not have happened.

Thank you!

 

[buzglyd]

Thanks @dioxide45 and @DeniseM I called in again this morning and was forwarded when I said "Owner Resolution Services" to "Owner Services." I spoke with a very nice rep who was able to help me connect my account. Because we are under a trust we had to use LastName = lastname, TRUSTEE format. I had only been entering our lastname.

Our mandatory Staroptions have not shown up but he said they will show up 60 - 90 days after next week. New II membership will also show up in that timeframe. Apparently we have a 10 day recission period even though we bought resale so that is why we have to wait until next week. Very curious, I guess if we wanted to back out now, we could...not sure if the property would revert to the developer or to the seller?

HUCA works. Tuggers are awesome as I would have been waiting for something to happen that would not have happened.

Thank you!

That's interesting. My SOs showed up as soon as I linked my account. I've got 81,000 for 2019. I haven't gotten anything from II yet but I'm sure I'll see that soon.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

He mentioned something about "first use 2019" because we are an EOY odd. Perhaps @buzglyd yours showed up because you are annual? Either way, I would expect it to show up by May for 8 month reservations commencing Jan 2019 which is within the 60 - 90 day window he mentioned. We won't use staroptions next year so not a big deal, however he said II is part of the VSN membership so would be associated with that. I want to check out II extra vacations ASAP so looking forward. We paid 2018 VSN fees.

 

[buzglyd]

He mentioned something about "first use 2019" because we are an EOY odd. Perhaps @buzglyd yours showed up because you are annual? Either way, I would expect it to show up by May for 8 month reservations commencing Jan 2019 which is within the 60 - 90 day window he mentioned. We won't use staroptions next year so not a big deal, however he said II is part of the VSN membership so would be associated with that. I want to check out II extra vacations ASAP so looking forward. We paid 2018 VSN fees.

Mine is a EOY odd. I have fiddled with the reservation system but can't book anything because it's still outside the 8 month window. Borrowing is ok if one prepays the maintenance fees for 2019. I'm not using mine until 2019 but I like to make a few practice bookings just to familiarize myself with the system.

 

[dioxide45]

Apparently we have a 10 day recission period even though we bought resale so that is why we have to wait until next week.

I don't think they really knew what they were talking about. The 10 day rescission is between you and the seller and is from the date that the contract is signed. You can't back out now because the contract was signed long ago. This could be just how they have to put it in their system and how they treat developer weeks IDK. Our weeks usually show up in our account automatically but the VSN number is messed up each time and we need to get that reset with Program Administration. The SOs have always shown up right away and once they fix the SN number the SOs then able to be combined for a single reservation. The issue with having the VSN number issue is that you can't combine the SOs from multiple weeks for a single reservation and you are also locked out of reserving online.

I will know soon enough how it goes for us this time. We just received an email yesterday that the week we bought back in January was recorded and being sent to Vistana.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Update: We received a follow-up call today from Vistana confirming that our account is all set up with our property. I am pleasantly surprised that they called.

I checked the app and our 176k starpoints are now in the account. No mention of rescission period as they said we can now make reservations.

How will we know when II is set up? Will we see a link in the Vistana.com account? If so, where? If not, will they send us login information?

 

[dioxide45]

How will we know when II is set up? Will we see a link in the Vistana.com account? If so, where? If not, will they send us login information?

You will know it is setup by checking the "What I Own" link from the dashboard. On the page that shows all the weeks you own, you will see an "II Account #" once your II account has been setup. It will take a few weeks.

 

[byeloe]

Update: We received a follow-up call today from Vistana confirming that our account is all set up with our property. I am pleasantly surprised that they called.

I checked the app and our 176k starpoints are now in the account. No mention of rescission period as they said we can now make reservations.

How will we know when II is set up? Will we see a link in the Vistana.com account? If so, where? If not, will they send us login information?

I ended up having to call Vistana, when my II account didn't show up after 4+ weeks. Hopefully yours goes more smoothly

 

[buzglyd]

You will know it is setup by checking the "What I Own" link from the dashboard. On the page that shows all the weeks you own, you will see an "II Account #" once your II account has been setup. It will take a few weeks.

Mine is all working except no II link yet. I'm still early in the game. I've been playing around with the system just to get an idea of how it works prior to "crunch time." HGVC Club Season works off the check OUT date so this is a little different.

I like how the discount for off season reservations is far greater than HGVC's. I can make 81000 points go pretty far.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

You will know it is setup by checking the "What I Own" link from the dashboard. On the page that shows all the weeks you own, you will see an "II Account #" once your II account has been setup. It will take a few weeks.

Thank you. So it sounds like one enters the II account via the Vistana portal? or will we need to set up a separate login with the II number?

Mine is all working except no II link yet. I'm still early in the game. I've been playing around with the system just to get an idea of how it works prior to "crunch time." HGVC Club Season works off the check OUT date so this is a little different.

I like how the discount for off season reservations is far greater than HGVC's. I can make 81000 points go pretty far.

I am also an HGVC owner. The Vistana system complements HGVC locations quite nicely. (We own and use HGVC NYC and trade our Vegas property for Hilton Hawaiian Village, Big Island, Park City (skiiing), or Cabo for shorter/3-5 day stays) RCI gives us additional options for Park City, Disney, and cash getaways however I believe the II properties are nicer.

To confirm: Vistana reservations are 12 months from CHECK-IN? not Check-OUT?

Let me know how your trading goes. We purchased WKORVN OF to use. We may look into buying a trader because the Vistana ski locations, Carribean and Kauai are appealing. However we need peak season so may need to rent if there are no mandatory in those locations or lock off our studio and get 81k points to trade. Also hoping that we can find discounted cash options for getaways in II.

For trading, can you apply Staroptions for less than a week stay? Except for Hawaii and Carribean, most places like Cabo, and skiing a week is too long for us - we prefer long weekends.

 

[seagila]

To confirm: Vistana reservations are 12 months from CHECK-IN? not Check-OUT?

For trading, can you apply Staroptions for less than a week stay? Except for Hawaii and Carribean, most places like Cabo, and skiing a week is too long for us - we prefer long weekends.

Reserving the week you own in your resort:

VSN Home Resort Reservation = 12 months - 8 months from CHECK-IN
HGVC Home Week Reservation = 12 months - 9 months from CHECK-IN (w/ exceptions at certain properties)

Reserving any other time or resort:

VSN StarOption Reeservation = 8 months or earlier from CHECK-IN. Can Reserve less than or more than a week-long stay, only limited by the StarOptions you have available. Minimum 1-night booking.

HGVC Club Season Reservation = 9 months or earlier from CHECK-OUT (w/ exceptions at certain properties). Can Reserve less than or more than a week-long stay, only limited by HGVC points you have available. Minimum 3-night booking.