Seeking advice about defaulting/collections agency option

[Ruddigore]

Starting last September, we set out to sell/divest all 3 of our timeshare ownerships. Two are now gone (one Deed Back, one Buy Back), and I am now working at divesting our last unit at The Grandview at Las Vegas. Given that the calendar has flipped over, we are overdue to pay the resort their 2019 maintenance fees (USD $865) and RCI their 2018 and 2019 membership fees (CDN $424). It looks to me like defaulting and transferring our resort account owed over to a collection agency would be 1. cheaper, and also 2. a lot less work [than putting our ownership up for sale for $nil]. Does anyone have experience or insights about this defaulting process? Thanks.
Also...multiple correspondents (GVLV, Vacation Villages, Daily Management Inc.) all indicate that GVLV has a "Deed Back" program, but pressing harder to actually access this program gets me `referred' sequentially to all three of these businesses because "that other business administers the Deed Back program". So I assume that their Deed Back program does not really exist for The Grandview at Las Vegas.

 

[LannyPC]

I wouldn't worry about RCI unless you want to continue with them. RCI is just an exchange club. You don't own anything with RCI.

Since you quoted the RCI fees in CDN, I'm assuming you live in Canada. If so, I don't know if an American company will have any sort of credit implications on a Canadian resident.

 

[Karen G]

Have you tried to give away your Grandview timeshare on the Bargain Deals forum here? That's a pretty popular timeshare and
there may someone who wants it. Here's the link to the forum: https://tugbbs.com/forums/index.php?forums/bargain-deals.55/

 

[Ruddigore]

Thank you, Lanny. Yes, we live in Victoria, BC. The RCI points are only an issue if we still choose to sell our last timeshare, because we have 379,000 RCI points banked that we could transfer to a new owner (this is a separate transaction done solely through RCI) - hopefully these banked points would make our Grandview Las Vegas unit more attractive for sale.
I suspect (not sure) that a US resort would be able to hire a Canadian collection agency to come after us -> I am not too worried about a `hit' on our credit rating, and I know that collection agencies accept substantially reduced payments to resolve debts owed to them.
I am currently chasing Grandview Las Vegas for an explanation of: What becomes of our actual `ownership' / deed if we default on one annual MF payment? Do we lose our ownership altogether (I hope so)? Or are we still owners and, if so, would we have to go through this same process in 12 months time?
(It is a busy time of year for this resort and they have been slow to respond to all my enquiries since I began contacting them in early February, it is a relief to have the TUG forum available to gain additional insights while I am waiting).

 

[RX8]

379,000 RCI points to transfer would likely get interest in your Grandview. The fact that it is already enrolled in points is another plus for a potential buyer. How many points per year to you get?

 

[Ruddigore]

We earn 122,000 points per year (ppy) at Grandview Las Vegas plus 67,500 ppy at Pacific Shores (Parksville, BC, Canada). Our Pacific Shores timeshare is already sold (via Buy Back), but we still have the last two years of residual points from our Pacific Shores maintenance fees `banked' in our RCI account. RCI has explained that we can transfer all of our accumulated RCI points to any new owner/buyer of our Grandview Las Vegas unit (379,000 RCI points total; plus yet another 189,500 banked RCI points are available if we wanted to pay yet another extra admin fee). We have not been able to travel since 2014 due to illness, and we have both been paying-but-ignoring our ongoing timeshare expenses since that time.

 

[stevio99]

Do you still have a mortgage on Grandview? If not, then you are in very good shape. You could pretty easily sell your points on ebay for a penny a point, and use that to pay off your maintenance. Once your square with MF, a 2-BR 122,000 has valu.e, and can probably be sold on ebay for $500-1000.

If you still owe on mortgage, its an entirely different ballgame.

 

[Ruddigore]

No mortgage. Thank you for that encouraging news about the points -> I had no idea that RCI points had any `value' on their own....my wife was our timeshare-meister until she became ill. Our 2015 RCI points (189,500) have evaporated, but we still have 568,500 banked RCI points available to us, provided we make an up-front payment to RCI of CDN $460. I am glad I decided to pose my question to this knowledgeable group.

 

[VanX]

Hi,

We are just across the water over on the Sunshine Coast and are a married couple in our early 50’s somewhat new to timesharing with a RCI points account.

Wondering if you would consider a fellow Canadians offer that covers all your expenses in order to bring all accounts to “paid up in full” and which includes a points transfer to us so that you could then “give it away” with a smaller points balance (68.5K points) to the new owner? It would provide us with a pure points (500K points) transfer to our existing RCI points account.

If yes, then I understand that would cost us upfront $865 USD ($1,155 CAD) plus $460 CAD in order to then get points transferred again at our cost. RCI Points transfer fee of $137 CAD. Works out to an offer of about 1/3 cent ($.0035) per point and leaves you with an asset in good standing and a companion RCI account with a fair balance of points.

Reasoning is that we don’t need another RCI account and unfortunately the GV resort is not on our want list but we can afford to use our funds to bring your accounts current and to fund a points transfer.

I do agree that as a “give away” here in TUG or as a low cost deal on EBAY after it has been funded up to be current and with nothing owing including a points balance and a RCI membership, it would go fast.

I do expect a person getting it for free would likely be willing to pay the close and the transfer fees for both the GV resort and RCI, if they want the RCI and to do the Membership Transfer using the RCI MTA form.

If the new owner of the GV resort don’t want your RCI account then you can always just let it expire by making no further payments next year and here is no collections for RCI.

 

[Ruddigore]

Thanks for your note, B&K. The steps in your proposal didn't occur to me, but they match up with our goals. (It's amazing to think that I posted my question just 16 hours ago....)
Is there some way that I can pass our e-mail address to you through TUG?

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

Thanks for your note, B&K. The steps in your proposal didn't occur to me, but they match up with our goals. (It's amazing to think that I posted my question just 16 hours ago....)
Is there some way that I can pass our e-mail address to you through TUG?

use the " Conversation " function - it will allow you to have a private / off forum conversation
without each party seeing the others email . You can then choose to share - emails / phone numbers / etc.- Within those conversations .

( Should you decide to do so / without anyone else viewing )

 

[brianfox]

Just like that! TUG provides a solution to a TS problem. Good God, those timeshare exit companies must hate TUG...

 

[TUGBrian]

Good God, those timeshare exit companies must hate TUG...

if only...far more folks in these situations find them than us in this day and age sadly.

 

[Passepartout]

MULTIPLE THUMBS WAAAY UP!!!

 

[easyrider]

Thank you, Lanny. Yes, we live in Victoria, BC. The RCI points are only an issue if we still choose to sell our last timeshare, because we have 379,000 RCI points banked that we could transfer to a new owner (this is a separate transaction done solely through RCI) - hopefully these banked points would make our Grandview Las Vegas unit more attractive for sale.
I suspect (not sure) that a US resort would be able to hire a Canadian collection agency to come after us -> I am not too worried about a `hit' on our credit rating, and I know that collection agencies accept substantially reduced payments to resolve debts owed to them.
I am currently chasing Grandview Las Vegas for an explanation of: What becomes of our actual `ownership' / deed if we default on one annual MF payment? Do we lose our ownership altogether (I hope so)? Or are we still owners and, if so, would we have to go through this same process in 12 months time?
(It is a busy time of year for this resort and they have been slow to respond to all my enquiries since I began contacting them in early February, it is a relief to have the TUG forum available to gain additional insights while I am waiting).

Since you live in Canada and the debt is incurred in the USA, the debt would have to go through a long process to be noted on your Canadian Credit report. The resort would likely not be willing to go through this process especially knowing you are not going to pay the debt anyway. I don't see much if any downside to just notify the resort that you are willing to sign the the deed back to them or let them foreclose.

Bill