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Canadians selling US timeshare needs help

M

magjrl

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
TUG Member
Joined
Aug 5, 2014
Messages
28
Reaction score
8
A few years ago we bought a timeshare at Meadowlake Golf and Ski Resort, in Columbia Falls, Montana.
We called Meadowlake last week to ask if they would buy it back.
They said they don’t buy back.
They sent us the info for the real estate company handling resales at Meadowlake.
I’ve communicated with the agent handling this.
She wrote me today to say to sell for less than $5000, the fee is $950 USD.
Plus for Canadians the Special attorney fee is $750USD.and her agent fee to do the research is $100.
First, does this sound reasonable?
BTW, We want to gift it for $50.
 
I'm assuming you want out. From reading your post I'm also assuming the only front end fee to list with this RE Company is the $100 Research Fee. If I am right and you want to sell, get a listing of Weeks like yours that the RE Company has for sale then list yours for 20% less than the lowest on the list. If they want more than $100 up front, forget it and go on to Plan B whatever that turns out to be...

George
 
Hi magjrl
i am a Canadian too. If you don’t have an outstanding loan for this particular timeshare, I suggest to simply just stop paying your maintenance fee and eventually they will take it back.
Paying to get rid of it is just throwing good money after bad.
when I realized that my timeshare was worth nothing, I refused to continue paying maintenance fees; I got a few collection calls but eventually, they just stopped calling and it did not cost me a penny. If you do get calls from the TS, it is important to know that US collection agencies need a permit to operate in Canada and more often than not, they don’t have one (when I asked them to email me a copy of their permit, they stopped calling!)
Any other solution will cost you hundreds of U.S. dollars (even if you GIVE it away, you might be stuck with transfer fees etc)
and no, it will not affect your credit rating, if you live in Canada and the TS is in the States .
 
magjrl said:
A few years ago we bought a timeshare at Meadowlake Golf and Ski Resort, in Columbia Falls, Montana.
We called Meadowlake last week to ask if they would buy it back.
They said they don’t buy back.
They sent us the info for the real estate company handling resales at Meadowlake.
I’ve communicated with the agent handling this.
She wrote me today to say to sell for less than $5000, the fee is $950 USD.
Plus for Canadians the Special attorney fee is $750USD.and her agent fee to do the research is $100.
First, does this sound reasonable?
BTW, We want to gift it for $50.
Click to expand...

Do you have someone who wants to take it for $50, or that is your goal price?

If you dont have anyone to take it, I would recommend listing it on the Tug bargain board for free. You might be able to get someone to take it and pay the transfer fees. I suspect a transfer company like LT Transfers could do the closing for much less than you've been quoted.

Edited to add: I would also try classified ads. They have the advantage of being free, so you aren't out anything if they dont work. Kijiji in Calgary and the Craigslist local to the resort are likely your best bets.
 
Last edited:
You said the resort doesn't buy back...but would they take it back for free? If you just deeded it back to them?
 
bizaro86 said:
Do you have someone who wants to take it for $50, or that is your goal price?

If you dont have anyone to take it, I would recommend listing it on the Tug bargain board for free. You might be able to get someone to take it and pay the transfer fees. I suspect a transfer company like LT Transfers could do the closing for much less than you've been quoted.

Edited to add: I would also try classified ads. They have the advantage of being free, so you aren't out anything if they dont work. Kijiji in Calgary and the Craigslist local to the resort are likely your best bets.
Click to expand...
bizaro86 said:
Do you have someone who wants to take it for $50, or that is your goal price?

If you dont have anyone to take it, I would recommend listing it on the Tug bargain board for free. You might be able to get someone to take it and pay the transfer fees. I suspect a transfer company like LT Transfers could do the closing for much less than you've been quoted.

Edited to add: I would also try classified ads. They have the advantage of being free, so you aren't out anything if they dont work. Kijiji in Calgary and the Craigslist local to the resort are likely your best bets.
Click to expand...
We don’t have anyone. There is a real estate company that has 70+ listings for Meadowlake, Purewest Realty.People asking for lots of big prices. Then as the list goes down to the bottom there are about 20 or so listings where the price is 50. So we are assuming that 50 is a mandatory bottom price for a listing.
I’ve looked many times on Tug. Lots of people selling for a penny. It seems to me that it is not legal or something to give it away for $0. We could go to kijiji or craigslist , see what’s going on there.
 
bogey21 said:
I'm assuming you want out. From reading your post I'm also assuming the only front end fee to list with this RE Company is the $100 Research Fee. If I am right and you want to sell, get a listing of Weeks like yours that the RE Company has for sale then list yours for 20% less than the lowest on the list. If they want more than $100 up front, forget it and go on to Plan B whatever that turns out to be...

George
Click to expand...
The lowest ones on the list are $50 and there 20+ listings at $50 so we are assuming that the RE company won’t take a listing for less than 50. I did email the agent this morning and asked about listing for $0 but no reply yet.
 
Karen G said:
Have you considered posting on the Bargain Deals forum here: https://tugbbs.com/forums/forums/free-timeshare-giveaways-and-bargain-deals.55/ ?
Click to expand...
Hi Karen, Yes we have considered that but we are Canadian and our TS is in Montana and it’s a little more tricky selling and we don’t know how we would be able to do that on our own. All the paperwork, we’d likely need a special attorney to handle it, complicated. We originally bought it as a resale from a senior couple in Wisconsin who had listed it with a RE company in Montana.
 
magjrl said:
Hi Karen, Yes we have considered that but we are Canadian and our TS is in Montana and it’s a little more tricky selling and we don’t know how we would be able to do that on our own. All the paperwork, we’d likely need a special attorney to handle it, complicated. We originally bought it as a resale from a senior couple in Wisconsin who had listed it with a RE company in Montana.
Click to expand...
You might want to contact LT Transfers, which many Tuggers recommend, and see if they can at least provide you with information. https://www.lttransfers.com
 
magjrl said:
I’ve looked many times on Tug. Lots of people selling for a penny. It seems to me that it is not legal or something to give it away for $0.
Click to expand...

It is very legal to give a timeshare away. When the cost of maintenance fees are more than you can or want to pay and there is no demand, then you HOPE that you can give it away to somebody who will take over the fees. Some timeshares have kept some value while others have not. The value for many timeshares is way down due to so many people being out of work. Meadow Lake is in high demand in the summer when Glacier NP is open, but much less demand for off season weeks. Depending on what you own (RCI Points? or a week?), somebody may want your week for the RCI Points to spend elsewhere or to use it for Glacier NP or Flathead Lake access etc. When you advertise, you might want to include the other attractions in the area like skiing or boating so people realize this is more than a summer vacation spot.

I think the difficulties of selling in the US may be less than you think. Many of the former notary requirements have been replaced by Docusign so you may be able to do it all online. Check with LT transfers to understand if this is complicated or not.
 
magjrl said:
Hi Karen, Yes we have considered that but we are Canadian and our TS is in Montana and it’s a little more tricky selling and we don’t know how we would be able to do that on our own. All the paperwork, we’d likely need a special attorney to handle it, complicated. We originally bought it as a resale from a senior couple in Wisconsin who had listed it with a RE company in Montana.
Click to expand...

Unlike Canadian real estate, US timeshare closings are generally not done by an attorney, just a closing company. It really isnt a big deal - the closing company (EG LT Transfer recommended above) takes care of everything - you just sign and get the signature notarized. You may have to go to the consulate and get it notarized there, but that requirement isnt dependent on who closes the sale for you. Sometimes I've found it easier to just get things notarized the next time I'm in the US, but obviously that's more complicated now...

If you're willing to give it away, you should list it on the bargain deals board. That is by far the most likely place to get someone to actually take it. Wherever you list, include a detailed explanation of what you own. It seems that ownerships there are on a rotation system - you should include which rotation you have and the schedule. If any points are involved, include how many and what type. If they aren't common (anything other than rci points) try to include a points chart. Definitely include the annual fees, and sell the area in your text.
 
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