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I think I may have been scammed.

Grammarhero

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Gah, your links and posts are quite helpful but your state abbreviations were throwing me off. I couldn't figure out if the OP lives in Missouri? And I was super confused how Missouri would help.
Now I'm thinking that you meant MT?
Anyway, all those QCD's sound messy and suspicious. What would be the reason for that? To sell the T/S at a higher price? That seems doubtful.
Was there a title co used? Doesn't sound like it. OP makes no mention.

OP, I am super sorry for your situation. Besides the mess with the sale, I thought it odd to wait and contact the resort in high season to let them know you would be using your fixed week. But, I own floating. Wondering what sort of information you were given regarding all that? Often in sales, it is mentioned who pays the current year MF and use. You didn't say anything about that. Anyway, best of luck that things work out for you. It sounds like a cute little place.

I meant MT or Montana. For someone named Grammarhero, I had messed up abbreviations.


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brigala

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Anyway, all those QCD's sound messy and suspicious. What would be the reason for that? To sell the T/S at a higher price? That seems doubtful.
Was there a title co used? Doesn't sound like it. OP makes no mention.

OP, I am super sorry for your situation. Besides the mess with the sale, I thought it odd to wait and contact the resort in high season to let them know you would be using your fixed week. But, I own floating. Wondering what sort of information you were given regarding all that? Often in sales, it is mentioned who pays the current year MF and use. You didn't say anything about that. Anyway, best of luck that things work out for you. It sounds like a cute little place.

I think it was so the seller could facilitate the sale for the owner without the owner having to get involved. Now, whether it was all done on the up and up or not is another question. We did discuss in our FB Messenger conversation the current year use; he said it was not rented or traded this year and we'd get use from it. We discussed when MF are due this year on the phone; I can't recall exactly when they were due but they were toward the end of the year. He also said to check in 2 weeks in advance (this is a fixed week) to let them know we were coming. So I used their web form for owners checking in, and that was 3 weeks in advance. That's when they contacted me to say they didn't have me in their books.

I meant MT or Montana. For someone named Grammarhero, I had messed up abbreviations.

It threw me off at first too, but I was politely ignoring the mistake. ;)
 

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Aaaand... now the voicemail for the resort is "memory full" (I've only left one message; it's not my fault). Grrr.
 

Panina

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Aaaand... now the voicemail for the resort is "memory full" (I've only left one message; it's not my fault). Grrr.
So maybe they aren’t ignoring you, just not there. Voicemail full late morning shows how lax they are.
 

RX8

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Aaaand... now the voicemail for the resort is "memory full" (I've only left one message; it's not my fault). Grrr.

I don’t know anything about this resort but it doesn’t appear to be well managed. Even if all this works out are you sure you want to own here?
 

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At this point we're in as far as we know unless there's fraud. The management is new, having turned over sometime between March and now. And so far I'm not impressed. I imagine if everyone feels the same way about it and it continues to be this bad, managers can be replaced.
 

Grammarhero

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At this point we're in as far as we know unless there's fraud. The management is new, having turned over sometime between March and now. And so far I'm not impressed. I imagine if everyone feels the same way about it and it continues to be this bad, managers can be replaced.

That is good news for you. Negligently prepared TS contracts can be covered by basic title or legal insurance.

Though lax management is a huge red flag. Fraud or negligence happens when managers aren’t on top of or engaged with their work portfolios.


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That is good news for you. Negligently prepared TS contracts can be covered by basic title or legal insurance.

Why do you keep talking about title insurance? The OP has never mentioned buying title insurance -- IMHO, title insurance is rarely purchased related to timeshare transactions. I'm not a lawyer, so please educate me here on why title insurance would play any role here.

I'm sure the resort has some sort of legal insurance, but I doubt it would cover the purchaser in any shape or form.

-ryan
 

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To my knowledge, there is no title insurance involved. First we need to figure out what's going on, then we need to do the best we can to move forward, whether that's ironing out the mistake or disputing the payment in paypal or suing the people that sold it to us or, as a last resort, suing the resort.

But I can't do a thing until I know what our status is, and they are still not picking up the phone or answering email.

Anybody in the West Glacier area want to go knock on their door for me?
 

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I got a reply from the owner of the PayPal account, the wife of the guy I bought from. She provided me with a link to the QCD record on the website from Flathead County. From there I was able to get enough information to search and I can see that three QCDs were recorded on that date: One from a private party to the resort, one from the resort to the person we purchased from, and one from that person to us.

Without knowing what was actually on those deeds, hard to say. But I'd have to say it is looking more like a transfer error/bookeeping on the resort side than fraud.

Few scammers would go through the trouble of actually recording deeds with the county to perpetuate fraud of a relatively small amount of money. Odd, yes, and red flag for bad management, possibly ... but fraud seems unlikely.

Good luck to you. Hope it all gets sorted out.

-ryan
 

Grammarhero

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Why do you keep talking about title insurance? The OP has never mentioned buying title insurance -- IMHO, title insurance is rarely purchased related to timeshare transactions. I'm not a lawyer, so please educate me here on why title insurance would play any role here.

I'm sure the resort has some sort of legal insurance, but I doubt it would cover the purchaser in any shape or form.

-ryan

It’s a moot point since OP didn’t buy title insurance. Title insurance protects against TS title or deed defects, unpaid liens, back taxes, unpaid MF, or any bounced checks from previous TS owner. OP mentioned how the QCD website did not list her specific unit . I’m also unsure if the resort manager properly transferred the TS deed or title free and clear and following all proper procedures.

Basic legal insurance does not cover this situation, but premium legal insurance might.


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sjsharkie

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It’s a moot point since OP didn’t buy title insurance. Title insurance protects against TS title or deed defects, unpaid liens, back taxes, unpaid MF, or any bounced checks from previous TS owner. OP mentioned how the QCD website did not list her specific unit . I’m also unsure if the resort manager properly transferred the TS deed or title free and clear and following all proper procedures.

Thank you, but I know what title insurance does. I was asking why you kept bringing it up in repeated posts -- this one and in others. They are rare in the majority of timeshare transactions. And most title insurance policies do not cover unpaid MFs or bounced checks unless the HOA recorded a lien against the property in prep for foreclosure -- this is why an estoppel is critical.

But for this topic as you say, it is a moot point.

-ryan
 

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OP mentioned how the QCD website did not list her specific unit .

To clarify, the website that showed the recorded activity for that resort *does* include specific unit numbers and week numbers on all the recorded documents. The only ones for my unit/week were the three that pertained to this transaction: Owner to resort, resort to manager, manager to me. There has been a lot of other activity recorded for that resort, including inheritance transfers, sales, and other transactions, but none of those pertain to my unit.
 

Panina

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To clarify, the website that showed the recorded activity for that resort *does* include specific unit numbers and week numbers on all the recorded documents. The only ones for my unit/week were the three that pertained to this transaction: Owner to resort, resort to manager, manager to me. There has been a lot of other activity recorded for that resort, including inheritance transfers, sales, and other transactions, but none of those pertain to my unit.
I would think it would be owner to resort, resort to you. Why resort to manager and then manager to you? Unless he purchased it at a lower asking price that the resort wanted and then sold it to you at a profit. That would be problematic to the association.
 

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I would think it would be owner to resort, resort to you. Why resort to manager and then manager to you? Unless he purchased it at a lower asking price that the resort wanted and then sold it to you at a profit. That would be problematic to the association.
I'd agree. It appears as if the manager profited from the transaction. I guess it could be that they did it for convenience since they had you PayPal the funds.

Either way, both are fishy practices and I would report it to the HOA.

Ryan

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I believe that it was for the convenience of being able to get the funds via PayPal, but you're all right, it could also have been for something underhanded or for profit. Until I hear back from the resort your guess is as good as mine. I've emailed twice and called half a dozen times with no answer at all today.
 

dioxide45

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I would think it would be owner to resort, resort to you. Why resort to manager and then manager to you? Unless he purchased it at a lower asking price that the resort wanted and then sold it to you at a profit. That would be problematic to the association.
I suspect the manager was not a real estate agent and had to be party to the transaction in some way in order to handle the closing himself?
 

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Well I finally heard from the person acting as the interim manager at the resort.

If nothing else, we are confirmed for our vacation. So there's that. She is showing where the share was transferred from the previous owner to the resort, and nobody else owns it and it hasn't been rented out. She's got everything to show that we paid the previous manager and had ownership transferred to us. The next question is going to be whether the previous manager got the money where it was supposed to go, and whether that should have been to the resort or to the previous owner. She does not know at this time whether the resort paid the previous owner for the share so she doesn't know where the money SHOULD have gone, let alone where it actually went. I told her to contact the previous manager to try to get that part sorted out. If the money I sent has gone missing, the next question is who's responsible for it.

I don't know much about real estate law (if that isn't obvious by now) but it does seem possible that the way it was done was to avoid having to pay a real estate agent.
 

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Well I finally heard from the person acting as the interim manager at the resort.

If nothing else, we are confirmed for our vacation. So there's that. She is showing where the share was transferred from the previous owner to the resort, and nobody else owns it and it hasn't been rented out. She's got everything to show that we paid the previous manager and had ownership transferred to us. The next question is going to be whether the previous manager got the money where it was supposed to go, and whether that should have been to the resort or to the previous owner. She does not know at this time whether the resort paid the previous owner for the share so she doesn't know where the money SHOULD have gone, let alone where it actually went. I told her to contact the previous manager to try to get that part sorted out. If the money I sent has gone missing, the next question is who's responsible for it.

I don't know much about real estate law (if that isn't obvious by now) but it does seem possible that the way it was done was to avoid having to pay a real estate agent.

If the deed has been recorded, and they do in fact show the receipt of funds and history of the transaction.. I'd say where the money went is their problem. Glad to hear you've got the vacay scheduled, it sounds as though they've got some serious internal issues to resolve.
 

Panina

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Well I finally heard from the person acting as the interim manager at the resort.

If nothing else, we are confirmed for our vacation. So there's that. She is showing where the share was transferred from the previous owner to the resort, and nobody else owns it and it hasn't been rented out. She's got everything to show that we paid the previous manager and had ownership transferred to us. The next question is going to be whether the previous manager got the money where it was supposed to go, and whether that should have been to the resort or to the previous owner. She does not know at this time whether the resort paid the previous owner for the share so she doesn't know where the money SHOULD have gone, let alone where it actually went. I told her to contact the previous manager to try to get that part sorted out. If the money I sent has gone missing, the next question is who's responsible for it.

I don't know much about real estate law (if that isn't obvious by now) but it does seem possible that the way it was done was to avoid having to pay a real estate agent.
Glad it worked out. Not your individual problem where the money went. The previous manager and where the money went is the Associations problem. Maybe there was a situation before and there is a reason he is no longer the manager.
 

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Yup. All the QCDs are recorded for the various transfers. In my own mind at least (LOL) I own that dang week. If someone tries to tell me I don't, or if they want me to try to get the money back from the person I paid (whose name is on the final QCD transferring from him to me) and then pay it to someone else, my next step will be to consult with an attorney in Flathead County.

Our MFs are due July 1, but she said not to send them yet. Hopefully we'll have everything figured out before I need to send anybody any more money!!
 

Grammarhero

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Well I finally heard from the person acting as the interim manager at the resort.

If nothing else, we are confirmed for our vacation. So there's that. She is showing where the share was transferred from the previous owner to the resort, and nobody else owns it and it hasn't been rented out. She's got everything to show that we paid the previous manager and had ownership transferred to us. The next question is going to be whether the previous manager got the money where it was supposed to go, and whether that should have been to the resort or to the previous owner. She does not know at this time whether the resort paid the previous owner for the share so she doesn't know where the money SHOULD have gone, let alone where it actually went. I told her to contact the previous manager to try to get that part sorted out. If the money I sent has gone missing, the next question is who's responsible for it.

I don't know much about real estate law (if that isn't obvious by now) but it does seem possible that the way it was done was to avoid having to pay a real estate agent.

You are not legally responsible where the money went. The previous owner can sue the resort, manager, or wife. The resort can sue the manager or wife. The MT Timeshare Act was skimpy, but at least it covered civil liability for embezzled payments. You did not materially aid such embezzlement or non-payment of the resort or previous owner. The manager was the resort’s agent.

The resort has not contacted a lawyer, has contacted a shady lawyer, or has contacted a lawyer but refused to listen to advice (it happens a lot). No lawyer with scruples would advise their client to say a losing legal doctrine (ie. That you might be legally responsible for embezzled money without knowing about such embezzlement). Such tactic is TS salesman-level. I’ve uploaded parts of the MT Timeshare Act for your benefit.

216c7c134b87a41fd57cb9e0139a1dd3.jpg
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59cd1e344c998d903c9e6186beaa0759.jpg



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Yup. All the QCDs are recorded for the various transfers. In my own mind at least (LOL) I own that dang week. If someone tries to tell me I don't, or if they want me to try to get the money back from the person I paid (whose name is on the final QCD transferring from him to me) and then pay it to someone else, my next step will be to consult with an attorney in Flathead County.

Our MFs are due July 1, but she said not to send them yet. Hopefully we'll have everything figured out before I need to send anybody any more money!!
Whew! I love a happy ending! Agreed the details were odd, but you've checked with the county. Your deed is recorded. Your TS acknowledges you as the owner of record. Enjoy your vacation!

No need to involve a realtor (haha...as, yes, I have an inactive license). I'd take a title company I trust, but the key word there is one you trust. I once had to threaten the attny/owner of a title company with reporting him to the bar to get him to correct his moogy-foogy. Real Estate can be tricky!

Just focus on learning about the details of the timeshare you now own and, thank goodness for TUG, right? What a wealth of information and support!
 

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Looks like OP is home free. If it were me, my next step would be to have a simple conversation with whoever the Manager is while I was using my Week. This way face to face my guess is that I would find out that what happened was nothing more than administrative incompetence...

George
 

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Thank you for all your help, everyone. Having someone to discuss this with while I waited (and waited and waited) has been a godsend. The mess isn't entirely over yet, but I feel pretty confident that I have the legal ground to stand on that I bought the timeshare from the person who had a legal standing to sell it to me, and whether that person did or didn't appropriately manage the funds isn't really my problem. At worst, it's possible I might have to pay some money to an attorney to write a letter or get deposed for a legal hearing between the resort and the previous manager - and in the grand scheme of things although I hope it doesn't come to that it isn't the end of the world.
 
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