Defaulting Mexican Timeshare

[TUGBrian]

Rereading this thread feels like it needs some more granular explanations as so many terms are used very loosely in this space both intentionally and accidentally.

1. if you default on any debt, be it a loan or just your maintenance fees. you can expect SOME effort to get you to pay what you owe. Plenty of owners claim they "never heard from the resort again"...but thats unusual. letters reminding you that you havent paid are perfectly normal and expected.

2. there is a vast chasm of difference between getting a notice of late assessment, notice of default, notice of lien, notice of intent to foreclose....and you being "sued" or "foreclosed on". granted its part of the process, but these notifications exist to get you to pay WITHOUT further action...and they are usually very effective!

3. being turned over to a collections agency is also a possibility where you will then likely get a whole new round of angry sounding notices as THEY now attempt to get you to pay without having to perform any further action other than calls/emails/letters sent, they earn money by getting owners to pay.

all of these activities/attempts cost VERY little in the grand scheme of things and as mentioned above are all tried and true efforts to convince you to pay without the creditor/etc having to put anything more than the bare minimum of cost/time/effort into pursuing a delinquency because these strategies have been proven to work while still abiding by most collections laws (that are quite consumer friendly).

where the rubber meets the road is what happens at step 4 and every situation is different. the main difference for owners is are you defaulting on your annual dues, or a loan balance.

will the resort or collections firm report the delinquency to the credit bureaus?

non payment of mf? unlikely (based on reports, the chances of it NOT happening are greater than it happening just remember its never zero %)
non payment of loan? very likely

will they actually pursue foreclosure?

highly unlikely in any situation because you aren't going to dispute or fight it as you dont want the ownership anyway, foreclosure is time consuming and expensive for the resort, not the owner. After enough time has passed in default, "in lieu" of going thru foreclosure the resort usually makes an effort to contact the owner a final time to negotiate a settlement/agreement that results in the owner willingly signing the deed back over to the resort/developer/association/etc because they know full well that you wanted to give it back in the first place.

will they pursue a judgement(ie suing you for money)?

non payment of mf? unheard of
non payment of loan? unlikely UNLESS you owe enough to make it worth their while to pursue! its likely not worth the time or effort to pursue 20k. however if you stop paying on a 6 figure loan balance, that is certainly enough to put you at risk of collections efforts and in that situation with that much debt you should be speaking to an attorney that specializes in bankruptcy and or debt collection in your home state because if it ever got to that point, your states collections laws would dictate the steps any organization must follow to collect on a judgement.

lastly the attempt to collect a debt across international borders is also almost unheard of (cost/time/effort all much higher). but again, expect threats via email/letter/phone!

 

[WorldT]

Thanks @TUGBrian for the reminder.

 

[Passepartout]

REALLY GOOD synopsis, @TUGBrian . This info should be in a sticky placed somewhere that folks (usually newbies or Google searchers) can find it. It would eliminate or certainly reduce the ongoing barrage of requests- which will only get more frequent.

Jim

 

[Beach57]

I rent on RedWeek. Have you tried that?

Another option is to vacation with a large group of family and friends, and everyone pays you for the points they use.

I have over 8000 annual points and use them all up every year, and often have to borrow from future years.

Good luck! I hope you’re can work it out.

 

[jules54]

Thank you all for your thoughts...I'm not sure what route we will take yet. I am thinking that since it is only about $2500, just pay it and get over it. But the problem still remains...if we pay it, does that stop MF payments from here on, or will they keep billing us? I don't ever want to go to Villa del Arco again!!

Why throw more money at something you don’t want. You have tried to give it back, the resort company would t take it. You have no loan on it right? If there is still a loan on it I can see why the resort company won’t let people out. Just stop paying. If debt collectors call you don’t answer or hang up. If they send you letters don’t answer. Let them keep billing you, return the bills to sender or ignore them they will stop. If your credit takes a ding it won’t mean much. Credit rating companies are aware what a timeshare is and what people have to go through to get out.

 

[easyrider]

I have read most of the feed and like many others, I am confused. We have owned at Villa del Arco since June 2007 and have paid maintenance fees all the years until 2020. We stayed there in 2020 to get information on our options of giving it up and while there, we went to two presentations that they offered for members to upgrade our membership. Each time we told the Vill del Arco manager in charge, that we were trying to get out of our time share, not upgrade it. BOTH times the managers told us to just quit paying for it then, that the funds were in a Mexican bank and they couldn't do anything to us in the USA if we quit paying the maintenance fees. We also talked to another manger at another time share and he told us the exact same thing..."just don't pay any more maintenance fees". Today we received a notice from Monterey Financial Services about the $2475.54 we owed to Villa del Arco and if we didn't pay, it would affect our credit report. I am scared, because we have a 692 credit rating and we work hard to keep it up, without any negative items on it. We have paid them so much over the years and rarely used the Time Share!! My husband wants to ignore it, but I don't want negative credit for seven years or however long!! Can Monterey Financial relly enforce that??

What has happened in the past is Resortcom would have sent you notices of delinquency and then attempted to negotiate before going to collection. If it's a Mexican loan they can get a Judgement in Mexico. Basically, Monterey Financial buys debt for very little and uses debt collection tactics to negotiate a payment. I copy pasted what happens below.

Bill

What if I am sued by Monterey Financial?​

If you receive notification that Monterey Financial is suing you in an attempt to collect a debt, you'll need to take action immediately. Typically, you'll have a limited amount of time to do so. It's usually 14-35 days or less.

First, you'll want to respond to their complaint by filing an Answer in your local court. The answer should contain the following information:

• A response to each of the claims against you
• Validation that the debt belongs to you
• Verification that Monterey Financial has the authority to file a lawsuit against you
• A request for documentation for their claims

In many cases, debt collection agencies purchase old debts for small amounts of money from a variety of different creditors. In some cases, they may not receive the appropriate documentation required to validate their claims. Once you file your answer, they will need to respond to you with all of the information you've asked for.

Sometimes, this may be enough for the debt collector to drop the lawsuit against you, especially if they don't have the required information to collect on the debt. It may become too expensive for them to follow up on, and they'll simply cut their losses.

 

[TugMeBack]

Just got notified that Meridian FS reported us to the credit bureau(s) for non-payment of MFs to Sunset Group. We're in CA - hope the state laws may help, Meridian is in NC, Sunset is in Mexico although I vaguely recall seeing them use some address in Brickell, FL. The amount claimed is over $10K, most of which interest and penalties, only $4K+ is MFs. Any recommendations on how to deal with it?

Long story short: bought this TS with perpetual RTU (more like perpetual IOU) young and naive over 20 years, paid in full, barely used it since they oversold badly and it was relatively hard to book. They lied about being able to rent unused weeks thru their broker (they never had a broker). Most weeks were lost over the years, then it came to a head when they promised to roll COVID weeks when they chose to close and then backtracked and cancelled them for their own financial reasons claiming loss of income during COVID. We actually intended to use it ourselves after the pandemic despite really bad previous experience.

Made multiple contacts with customer service and made multiple requests for contact with Executive Offices as instructed attempting to cancel the membership, they ignored us, we stopped paying and here are we're now.

Any constructive input is much appreciated!

 

[TugMeBack]

Sometimes, this may be enough for the debt collector to drop the lawsuit against you, especially if they don't have the required information to collect on the debt. It may become too expensive for them to follow up on, and they'll simply cut their losses.

BTW, has anyone considered or tried taking a collection agency to a Small Claims Court over such a matter? Could likely lack of documentation, questionable/inflated amounts and having to travel cross country to fight you convince them to go away?

 

[WorldT]

BTW, has anyone considered or tried taking a collection agency to a Small Claims Court over such a matter? Could likely lack of documentation, questionable/inflated amounts and having to travel cross country to fight you convince them to go away?

If they sued you, the matter is already in court. You now have to respond and ask for documentation to prove their case. Typically, they drop the case as mentioned in post #56 above. I would not proactively sue them just to get them to stop mailing you.

You case of negative credit entry in your credit history is a little different. You can still contest it though but the bar is so low that anything the company show the bureaus tend to be accepted. But you should still contest it by creating an account and dispute the entry. Irrespective of the outcome, keep an in mind that an entry such as that may not necessarily prevent you from loans and mortgages. It may be a problem with security clearance for the military and other classified jobs.

 

[TugMeBack]

If they sued you, the matter is already in court.
...
keep an in mind that an entry such as that may not necessarily prevent you from loans and mortgages.

Thanks for your response! Not aware of being sued, at least not yet. Just got notifications from credit monitoring services for both of us after only one email and one phone call that we didn't take. Hence, considering taking a preemptive action in small claims. Expected different sort of harassment after the email but they limited themselves to just that.

Not concerned about classified jobs but would like to maintain our 8xx credit scores. Any idea how bad that hit might be? Would need to maintain at least 720+ to get new cars, etc at tier 1 rates.

 

[easyrider]

Thanks for your response! Not aware of being sued, at least not yet. Just got notifications from credit monitoring services for both of us after only one email and one phone call that we didn't take. Hence, considering taking a preemptive action in small claims. Expected different sort of harassment after the email but they limited themselves to just that.

Not concerned about classified jobs but would like to maintain our 8xx credit scores. Any idea how bad that hit might be? Would need to maintain at least 720+ to get new cars, etc at tier 1 rates.

If your loan originated in the USA then expect the issue to be the same as defaulting on an American type credit card or line of credit. You can buy products in Mexico, including a timeshare, with a line of credit from the USA.

Bill

 

[TugMeBack]

If your loan originated in the USA then expect the issue to be the same as defaulting on an American type credit card or line of credit. You can buy products in Mexico, including a timeshare, with a line of credit from the USA.

Bill

Bill, thanks for your response. Nothing was originated or contracted in the US, all MX. The original contract balance was paid off well over 10 years ago. It's strictly MFs, penalties and interest however they calculated them. Then the collector seems to have added another $3K of their own P&I.

 

[easyrider]

Bill, thanks for your response. Nothing was originated or contracted in the US, all MX. The original contract balance was paid off well over 10 years ago. It's strictly MFs, penalties and interest however they calculated them. Then the collector seems to have added another $3K of their own P&I.

Your debt was sold to some sleeze ball debt collector is what it sounds like.

Bill

 

[geist1223]

Problems with going to Small Claims Court:
1. Getting Legal Service of Process on opposing Party.
2. If you do get Legal Service of Process and they respond at the Hearing they may have the Court place you under Oath and cross-examine you on the Debt.

 

[andre10056]

I haven't been following this thread but I just skimmed through it.

All I can say is that asking non-lawyers for legal advice about topics like:

- Can a Mexican entity prevail in a suit against you in the US?

- Is a Mexican loan or contract enforceable against a US resident?

- or anything else pertaining to these kind of situations

and getting many different responses to all of the above makes no sense to me.

These are easy issues to get definitive answers from an attorney with a minimum of appropriate experience...and an initial consultation may be free or, at worst, low cost.

By the way, my suspicion is that ...yes...the Mexican entity can send the file to a US attorney who can very well file suit against you in your home town...and simultaneously file tens of other debtor/creditor suits so that they're all heard "rapid fire" on the same day. So there's really no big deal about it.

Whether they would do so is another matter.

But that's just my suspicion. I freely admit that I don't know as I suspect others don't know. I bet, however, that a debtor/creditor attorney would know.

 

[TugMeBack]

Problems with going to Small Claims Court:
1. Getting Legal Service of Process on opposing Party.
2. If you do get Legal Service of Process and they respond at the Hearing they may have the Court place you under Oath and cross-examine you on the Debt.

Can probably find a process server in their town in NC. How/why would #2 be a problem though?

 

[geist1223]

Can probably find a process server in their town in NC. How/why would #2 be a problem though?

They would end up proving the debt.

 

[TugMeBack]

Curious why are you so sure that a CA judge would side with a Mexican racketeer company and their NC sidekick enforcer?

Again, the original loan was paid in full over a decade ago. About two thirds of the claimed amount is P&I on the MFs since they would not release a customer from a PERPETUAL (read lifetime) RTU contract. Seems highly a predatory not to offer a release from lifetime obligation stemming from a sale made under numerous completely false pretenses.

 

[andre10056]

BTW, has anyone considered or tried taking a collection agency to a Small Claims Court over such a matter? Could likely lack of documentation, questionable/inflated amounts and having to travel cross country to fight you convince them to go away?

"...having to travel cross country"????

So you think filing suit against an "across the country" defendant means that that defendant automatically has to come to you? If you're sued by an entity three thousand miles away, then you have to travel to the suit filer's home state?

I don't think so. Seems like that "across the country" state would not have jurisdiction over that defendant. But, after serving notice on that defendant in his home state, YOU would have to travel there. The lawsuit would proceed, and could only proceed, in the defendant's location, not the out-of-state filer's location.

Again, if you're thinking things like that, perhaps you should make an appointment for an attorney's consultation.

And/or do as someone already described within this thread: become a member of a legal services plan.

 

[WorldT]

"...having to travel cross country"????

So you think filing suit against an "across the country" defendant means that that defendant automatically has to come to you? If you're sued by an entity three thousand miles away, then you have to travel to the suit filer's home state?

I don't think so. Seems like that "across the country" state would not have jurisdiction over that defendant. But, after serving notice on that defendant in his home state, YOU would have to travel there. The lawsuit would proceed, and could only proceed, in the defendant's location, not the out-of-state filer's location.

Again, if you're thinking things like that, perhaps you should make an appointment for an attorney's consultation.

And/or do as someone already described within this thread: become a member of a legal services plan.

In your post #65 you are saying the OP should not take comments from non-attorneys in this thread but you are now making a comment on jurisdiction? Are you an attorney?

 

[andre10056]

In your post #65 you are saying the OP should not take comments from non-attorneys in this thread but you are now making a comment on jurisdiction? Are you an attorney?

The OP (or whoever) seems to believe that you can file suit where you live and force someone from across the country to show up in your local court.

I'm not an attorney but I have sued someone as a pro se attorney (which means I represented myself) and the whole topic of jurisdiction and notice was a necessary part of my research. And please note that all 50 states and the District of Columbia have their own individual laws so the most I could say in regards to the OP's (or whoever's) apparent belief is "I don't think so. Perhaps you should contact an attorney if you believe that".

Perhaps he's right for wherever he lives. But I truly don't think so.

 

[WorldT]

The OP (or whoever) seems to believe that you can file suit where you live and force someone from across the country to show up in your local court.

I'm not an attorney but I have sued someone as a pro se attorney (which means I represented myself) and the whole topic of jurisdiction and notice was a necessary part of my research. And please note that all 50 states and the District of Columbia have their own individual laws so the most I could say in regards to the OP's (or whoever's) apparent belief is "I don't think so. Perhaps you should contact an attorney if you believe that".

Perhaps he's right for wherever he lives. But I truly don't think so.

In other words, you don't know. You don't know where @TugMeBack lives so you can't say for certain what laws will apply.
Considering @TugMeBack was referring to a company not an individual, in Texas, they will be able to sue the company at their local court if the company is "transacting business" in the state irrespective of where their office is located.
I am not saying that said company meets the definition of transacting business but the very well could.

 

[andre10056]

In other words, you don't know. You don't know where @TugMeBack lives so you can't say for certain what laws will apply.
Considering @TugMeBack was referring to a company not an individual, in Texas, they will be able to sue the company at their local court if the company is "transacting business" in the state irrespective of where their office is located.
I am not saying that said company meets the definition of transacting business but the very well could.

OK. In your world, you can sue whatever out of state entity IN YOUR HOME STATE just because they may have some kind of account relationship with you. That other party would then have to travel to your state despite having no ties, no offices, no employees, no agents in your state. If that's what you believe, I would say perhaps you should speak to an attorney. That's exactly what I said above. Apparently you were aggrieved by that. Not sure why.

And, by the way, it was the OP (or whoever) who devised the strategy of suing someone else in the OP's home state because then he would win because the other party would presumably not be willing to travel across the country. I accepted his words about where he lives relative to the other.

Do you really think the courts will allow you to implement that kind of gamesmanship to not allow the defendant to defend himself?

 

[WorldT]

OK. In your world, you can sue whatever out of state entity IN YOUR HOME STATE just because they may have some kind of account relationship with you. That other party would then have to travel to your state despite having no ties, no offices, no employees, no agents in your state. If that's what you believe, I would say perhaps you should speak to an attorney. That's exactly what I said above. Apparently you were aggrieved by that. Not sure why.

And, by the way, it was the OP (or whoever) who devised the strategy of suing someone else in the OP's home state because then he would win because the other party would presumably not be willing to travel across the country. I accepted his words about where he lives relative to the other.

Do you really think the courts will allow you to implement that kind of gamesmanship to not allow the defendant to defend himself?

I am not aggrieved by your recommendation to speak to an attorney. On the contrary, I would recommend the same thing too if a person is not familiar with the laws and rules of civil procedure. Here are two things I am trying to state:
1. You said the OP should not listen to comments on this forum because they are not from attorneys but then you proceed to post about a suggested lawsuit not being possible due to jurisdictional issues when you are not an attorney.
2. I also wanted to clarify that you can, at least in Texas, sue a company as long as the company meet certain criteria even if they do not have an office in Texas. These rules were not created by me or any other person posting in this forum. It is not gamesmanship. It is simply the rules and it applies to everyone.

I did add that I am not sure that this particular company meets the criteria of "transacting business". That is something the petitioner will need to verify before proceeding with a lawsuit.
Finally, we don't know the state of the petitioner so we are not sure what rules will apply. I was just using Texas as an example.

Personally, I wouldn't even sue based on the OP's description even if the company meet the criteria to be sued in my home state. A report to the credit bureau isn't going to get them any money from me, why bother. I also don't have a need for a perfect credit score.

 

[andre10056]

I brought up an issue that "Tugmeback" should be aware of. Namely, whether or not you could do as he proposed: sue a collection agency located "across the country" simply because he would then "win" because the other party would not want to do such traveling.

I didn't get into whether the "collection agency", someone who the Mexican timeshare entity might call upon to collect, was even an appropriate party to sue to challenge the Mexican timeshare debt. In other words, I didn't ask what he thought he could get out of suing the collection agency in small claims court, what the theory of his litigation might be, but merely questioned his thinking he could file suit against a distant state's defendant in his home state and force that defendant to come there.

I didn't think he was right about being able to do so, let him know what I thought, and urged him to seek an attorney's consultation if that's what he thought.

Without saying so, I hoped he might also learn some other things via an attorney's consultation. Like, for example, your and others telling him, as reflected in your last post, that the worst that can possibly happen is you might get a credit ding that you stated you wouldn't care about. On the contrary, I believe it's entirely possible that a Mexican timeshare entity can send/FAX the complete file, with completely detailed historical records, to a debtor creditor attorney in Tugmeback's hometown, file suit against him, and proceed to judgment. That's what any credit card company would do and, for most debtor-creditor attorneys, they do multiple such cases rapid fire during one court session (meaning that their billed cost per judgement is minimal). Once that judgment is entered against Tugmeback, it serves as a 20 year lien against him such that it will have to be satisfied simultaneous with the sale of his home. Or they might not want to wait for the sale of the home but choose to execute on the judgment right away (or at least let Tugmeback know that that's what they will do as a means of getting him to pay).

Perhaps Tugmeback doesn't have a home, but that can be checked in a matter of minutes via online city or town property tax records. If he does, and there is likely equity in that home (also easily researched), he's vulnerable. If not, and it appears to the debtor-creditor attorney that Tugmeback is the proverbial stone that you can't get blood out of, he might escape scot free.

I didn't get into any of that.

I've seen people post that scenario never happens. That timeshare entities, already allegedly embarrassed by their poor reputations, never file suit against a defaulting timeshare owner. After all, I'm told, nobody's heard of that happening.

Just because people haven't heard about that happening, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

OK. Keep advising people to just walk away. That the worst that can happen is a ding on their credit. Maybe you're right. Maybe you're not. And, in any case, no one knows who you are so no one can later sue you for having followed your possibly bad legal advice. Your "practicing law without a license" legal advice.