Giving Away Bluegreen Points

[JavaDay]

So after spending over an hour on the phone with Bluegreen, I had to ask for advice.
My husband and I are looking to get rid of our 8,000 Bluegreen points. I've been trying to figure out where to post on TUG, free or bargain.

We are not looking to get any money for them. I know the title transfer is $500. We are up to date on maintenance fees. I was thinking of just giving the points away but Bluegreen said that they have rights of first refusal and if I "devalue their product", they may take the points themselves. Honestly, at that point I have problems with paying the title transfer for Bluegreen to get the points to resell. I'd rather someone else use them.

They also discussed if I wanted to donate it to a charity and took my information to have someone contact me in 10 days. I asked them if Bluegreen would just take over the points and they said no.

So my questions are these-
Has anyone experienced Bluegreen exercising the right of first refusal? And if so, were there no money involved? Should I sell my points for something like $500? Would this be enough to keep them from taking the points?
Also, has anyone been successful donating their points to a charity? It sounds great for a charity to use the vacation club. It doesn't seem like something that will happen.

I hope these questions are in the right place. It's my first post and I'm not sure.
Thank you in advance.

 

[rapmarks]

I object to them saying you would devalue their product. They devalued the product when they took away many privileges from resale.
They occasionally exercise ROFR but it is hard to predict.
You are correct, charities are unlikely to accept the vacation club
You should have no problem giving away here or on one of numerous bluegreen Facebook pages. Whether they exercise rofr is not something you can control.

 

[AJCts411]

If your going to give them away, just to rid yourself of the obligation, then why the concern for ROFR? Same cost to you, your out and the greedy, unscrupulous, exercising ROFR at your closing expense just expands the black mark on this corporation aka no ethics. Maybe pull their chain a bit...write the offer to give away with closing costs, available to private purchasers only...all they can do is object LOL.

 

[JavaDay]

I object to them saying you would devalue their product. They devalued the product when they took away many privileges from resale.
They occasionally exercise ROFR but it is hard to predict.
You are correct, charities are unlikely to accept the vacation club
You should have no problem giving away here or on one of numerous bluegreen Facebook pages. Whether they exercise rofr is not something you can control.

Thanks, you are right, stop borrowing trouble before it happens. I'll post and see.

 

[JavaDay]

If your going to give them away, just to rid yourself of the obligation, then why the concern for ROFR? Same cost to you, your out and the greedy, unscrupulous, exercising ROFR at your closing expense just expands the black mark on this corporation aka no ethics. Maybe pull their chain a bit...write the offer to give away with closing costs, available to private purchasers only...all they can do is object LOL.

Same cost but it's "sour" money if it goes back to them. LOL I think I'm ready to move on with whatever happens. Thank you.

 

[chapjim]

So after spending over an hour on the phone with Bluegreen, I had to ask for advice.
My husband and I are looking to get rid of our 8,000 Bluegreen points. I've been trying to figure out where to post on TUG, free or bargain.

We are not looking to get any money for them. I know the title transfer is $500. We are up to date on maintenance fees. I was thinking of just giving the points away but Bluegreen said that they have rights of first refusal and if I "devalue their product", they may take the points themselves. Honestly, at that point I have problems with paying the title transfer for Bluegreen to get the points to resell. I'd rather someone else use them.

They also discussed if I wanted to donate it to a charity and took my information to have someone contact me in 10 days. I asked them if Bluegreen would just take over the points and they said no.

So my questions are these-
Has anyone experienced Bluegreen exercising the right of first refusal? And if so, were there no money involved? Should I sell my points for something like $500? Would this be enough to keep them from taking the points?
Also, has anyone been successful donating their points to a charity? It sounds great for a charity to use the vacation club. It doesn't seem like something that will happen.

I hope these questions are in the right place. It's my first post and I'm not sure.
Thank you in advance.

As a seller, you should be indifferent to whether BlueGreen exercises ROFR. You will have sold (disposed of) the contract and who acquires it shouldn't be a matter of concern.

You have no continuing interest in the property once it is sold.

 

[appleflowers]

I'm considering donating our Bluegreen points right now through their pilot program too. This is it: https://insidetimeshare.com/fridays-letter-from-america-58/ (sorry, the article is a bit rambly and hard to read but it's the only thing I've found online specifically about the program)

Here're the important nuggets from Bluegreen:

We are sorry to hear that you wish to cancel your ownership. Unfortunately, there are no provisions for you to cancel your contract at this time.

However, we would like to offer you the opportunity to participate in a pilot program we have developed to assist owners like you who have no outstanding loan but would like to separate from the Bluegreen Vacation Club. The program is outlined below:

1. Donate your timeshare interest benefiting a charitable organization. Please see the attached document regarding worthy organizations.

2. You will be provided with a donation letter from the charity based on the current third party comparable selling price. With respect to your ownership, this is estimated to be $745. Please note that this letter does not represent proper documentation to support a deduction on your tax return nor is it a substitution for any third-party valuation that may be required by the IRS. We recommend that you consult with a tax advisor regarding requirements for claiming non-cash charitable donations.

3. You will have the option to utilize one-year’s allotment of (5,000) Vacation Points for up to two years (at no cost to you).

4. You will be released from any future obligations to the Bluegreen Vacation Club.

Charitable Giving Program – Donation Options

Junior Achievement of South Florida (JA)

SOS Children’s Villages – Florida is a foster care neighbourhood in Coconut Creek.

Christel House Some things should be handed down from one generation to the next. A life of poverty isn’t one of them.

JDRF is the leading global research organization accelerating medical breakthroughs to cure, prevent and treat Type 1 Diabetes (T1D).

The people that wrote that article seem to think the reason Bluegreen does this is to have a PR friendly way to divert disgruntled customers with the added bonus of legally laundering points (something called a "press and clean" idk). I have no idea how true that is. I'm not remotely an expert when it comes to this stuff.

But that does seem to answer the question I was wondering which was "What's in it for them?"

My other question is "What's the trade off?" which I think is probably the fees and whatnot that are taken out of the end value that we're able to write off on our taxes. But maybe not, maybe it really is the best option if the only other option is to just have them close your account.

The caveat I'm curious about is if whatever Bluegreen and the charity does will ever trigger a form 8282: https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8282

Anyway, if we end up going through with this I'll try to remember to report back here!

 

[TUGBrian]

its never a good use of your money to donate a timeshare for anything other than actual charitable reasons. there is no valid tax deduction on the donation of a worthless timeshare unfortunately, and most "charities" that take on timeshares charge very large upfront fees to do so.

you are in nearly all cases better off selling the timeshare and then making a cash donation of the proceeds directly to the charity of your choosing, and that is actually deductible!


any time you see this after someone posts Tax Advice, you can almost always bet its terrible advice:

"Please note that this letter does not represent proper documentation to support a deduction on your tax return nor is it a substitution for any third-party valuation that may be required by the IRS. We recommend that you consult with a tax advisor regarding requirements for claiming non-cash charitable donations. "

 

[Synergy]

It really sounds to me like Bluegreen has managed to develop a properly timesharily scummy version of Ovations. So long as they're coordinating it, though, I'd probably take advantage - leaving the IRS out of it entirely, of course. I would very much like to take an exec from one of those charities out for drinks to see exactly how it works on the back end.

 

[TUGBrian]

one would imagine said "pilot program" involves the owner paying a hefty fee. at least thats how every other charity donation for timeshare works.

 

[appleflowers]

one would imagine said "pilot program" involves the owner paying a hefty fee. at least thats how every other charity donation for timeshare works.

Yes, I'm sure you're right. They told us the value of the points we'd be able to donate after deducting points to cover the remaining maintenance fees for the year and any other fees for the process. (The value after covering remaining balance and fees is ~$200-$350. Don't want to provide exact number for anonymity.)

I have no doubt in my mind that we would get a significantly better value if we attempted to sell the points ourselves. But selling the points isn't an option we're even remotely interested in. Our goal is simply to get rid of the timeshare without any hassle. We were going to just have it canceled period, but were open to the charity pilot program depending on the specifics.

Since the program requires pretty much no effort on our end we're fine with getting a couple hundred dollar tax deduction (it's a non-cash charitable donation). (Note: this wouldn't make sense for us to do if we didn't itemize our tax deductions. The new tax changes have made it so many people now just take the standard deduction but we happen to not fall into that group. We do still itemize our deductions.)

So for us, in our very specific situation, this makes sense. BUT, and it's a big but, that's only if this pilot program is all on the up-and-up and isn't handled sloppily by Bluegreen or the charities they work with.

My cursory research shows that donating timeshares to charities can bite you in the ass if the charity turns around sells the timeshare within 2 years after you donate it and if the value they sell it for is significantly less than the value you claimed for the non-cash charitable tax deduction (IRS form 8282). BUT, this is a legitimate worry when attempting to just donate your timeshare to charity of your own choice or when going through a sketchy third-party — you can't blame a charity that isn't prepared for taking in timeshare donations for selling them.

So this pilot program only makes sense if Bluegreen and the the charities they partnered with have created specific bureaucratic processes to deal with these timeshare donations in a way that doesn't create bureaucratic consequences for the donor involved. There isn't any evidence online one way or the other. And I'm not sure I'm willing to be a guinea pig ...

 

[TUGBrian]

you can likely just offer your points up for free in the bargain deals section or the marketplace and have someone with the same trust type pick them up to add to their collection. happens all the time.