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Deed back program with Wastegate

Peadar1

Guest
Joined
Jul 8, 2025
Messages
3
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Resorts Owned
Westgate Town Center
We have 2 accts totaling 6 weeks. All paid off.
We requested the deed back plan which is acceptable to Wastegate BUT the fees are $5800!!!!
If I choose not to pay any further annual fees and not proceed with the deed back what will Mr. Siegel’s minions do?
Any help in my decision process?
 
Have you tried giving them away on TUG? Maybe offering to pay transfer and closing costs?
 
Did you talk to the contract mediation team or was it developer services? Do you owe anything for maintenance and taxes?
 
I believe it was developer services.
I do not owe maintenance or taxes and mortgages are paid off.
He quoted a cost of $5800 for our total 6 rooms, two accounts.
He gave me 5 days for a decision.
I told him it was unacceptable.
What is a contract mediation team?
 
Yes it was developer services. Here’s their email:

We are in receipt of your recent request for consideration into Westgate Resorts’ Voluntary Deed Back Program.



This is our 2nd attempt to contact you to discuss the details of this process. Please respond within five (5) business days of this email to continue with the process to deed your timeshare ownership back to Westgate. If we do not receive a response within the advised time frame, the offer will be withdrawn.



Please note, should your Voluntary Deed Back request be accepted, there will be a Timeshare Administrative Fee (TAF) required. The TAF is dependent on several factors, including but not limited to, costs related to the recording and transfer of property out of the owner’s name and back to Westgate Resorts, document preparation fees and recording costs related to the Quit Claim Deed, which is a legal document that relieves you from ownership of the property, Developer Sales & Marketing costs related to the resale of the timeshare unit, and current supply and demand of similar Developer Inventory.
 
Yeah most likely it's not a unit they're very interested in and since your account is up to date, they're not in a rush to get it back.

Contract Mediation is the department that would handle things if your account was past due for a very long time.

If you decide you don't want to keep it and don't want to pay the fee, especially if you can't negotiate it with them (which is unlikely), your account will eventually go into collections. It'll go through a few different departments in collections for a few years until eventually it'll reach Contract Mediation. They will offer you new deals, discounts, etc up until a certain point where you may qualify for a WDIL, which is a warranty deed in lieu of foreclosure. That'll still cost a few thousand though. If you just ignore it altogether, eventually the account will go into foreclosure. If it hits your credit at that point, you should be eligible for a settlement agreement, which usually costs $2500 per account and would remove Westgate from your credit line altogether.

Now, one thing you might be able to do with the Contract Mediation team in a few years is negotiate the WDIL. While they will try to charge based on how much money you owe, depending on which team member you talk to, they may be inclined to give you a deal, especially if you're polite and explain your situation or give them a sob story. If you're lucky enough, they may just send you the WDIL documentation before you even pay anything, which at that point you can just fill it out and send it back. They'll still try to contact you to collect, but once you submit the WDIL documentation, it goes straight to the legal team and they process it, they don't care if a fee was collected or not. This is not something I'd rely completely on. Sometimes they will send the documentation early, but most of the time they won't because they do want to try to collect the fee first.

So if you don't have any plans on using it, you either go through the deed back program now, or be ready to deal with collection calls for a long time. The foreclosure process is not a quick process, it'll take several years of delinquency and it'll go through a few different departments all of which will be trying to call you before it finally gets foreclosed on.
 
6 separate weeks for $5800 is under 1000 per week? other than walking away I doubt you are going to find a better deal with westgate to be rid of your ownerships?
 
So if you don't have any plans on using it, you either go through the deed back program now, or be ready to deal with collection calls for a long time. The foreclosure process is not a quick process, it'll take several years of delinquency and it'll go through a few different departments all of which will be trying to call you before it finally gets foreclosed on.

6 separate weeks for $5800 is under 1000 per week? other than walking away I doubt you are going to find a better deal with westgate to be rid of your ownerships?
Yeah, if you are not going to use your ownership, ~$6K is reasonable to get rid of it without having to:
  • Duck phone calls
  • Deal with a reduced credit rating
  • Worry about possible legal issues.
Especially since Westgate poorly treats resale buyers other than sales prospects for "upgrade".
 
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