Children inherits full rights, using trust or no trust, on deed or not on deed.
This statement is a little too broad, and it may not be accurate in some cases.
A deeded timeshare is a piece of real estate, and anyone who lawfully acquires that piece of real estate, whether by purchase, gift or inheritance, will,
in general, have all the same rights and privileges as the previous owner.
But when the timeshare is a club membership, it is clearly possible for the timeshare company to put limitations or restrictions on what can be sold, transferred or inherited. You can read all it about here on the TUG BBS. There are many, many discussions of how various timeshare companies have imposed restrictions on resale. Owners who bought their timeshare as a resale sometimes don't get all the rights and privileges that the original owner had.
Whether this is fair, and whether it is legal, are very interesting questions, and perhaps some of these restrictions could be challenged in court. But it is very clear that with vacation club memberships, some companies have adopted rules that place restrictions on exactly what can be sold, transferred or inherited.
Suppose you become a member of a fancy country club where you play golf. Some clubs have a one-time initiation fee of $5,000, or $25,000, or even more. And the monthly dues can be hundreds or thousands of dollars. At many of these clubs, you cannot even join unless two or three existing members sponsor you.
This type of club membership often cannot be transferred to anyone at all--not even through an inheritance. The governing documents simply say that the membership, and all its rights and privileges, terminate upon the death of the member.
I don't think any of the vacation clubs go that far. This whole thread began because the problem seems to be
the opposite. Many timeshares are perpetual, and the terms of the contract often go beyond the death of the owner. But especially when it is NOT real estate, the terms of the contract can limit what aspects of the timeshare can be transferred.
What Marriott told joybeckerly is not completely irrational. If the timeshare is held in a trust, then the trust,
as a legal entity similar to a corporation, can pile up unused points or whatever, and the trustee can simply authorize one or more beneficiaries to use them, and that process continues, beyond the death of the original purchaser, as long as the timeshare
stays inside the trust--even if the identity of the trustee changes, and even if the beneficiaries change. But if the timeshare is distributed out of the trust, to one or more beneficiaries, then that is a change in ownership that could cause the loss of accumulated points.
This might be a reason, in some cases, to put a timeshare in a trust. But the trust would have be designed to continue after the death of the original owner,
at least until the accumulated points are used up. If the trust required complete dissolution and distribution of all the assets immediately after the death, then that would defeat the purpose.
I have no idea what kind of restrictions Marriott has on the particular timeshare that joybeckerly owns. This is all educated speculation. My family has one deeded timeshare, and it actually is in a trust. We're not worried about what happens after the death of the original owner. If none of the beneficiaries wants it, we're pretty sure the resort will take it back, or the trustee will find someone
else to give it away to (maybe here on the TUG BBS lol).
I don't mess around with clubs and points, so my understanding of those systems is extremely limited. But you'll find all kinds of threads on here about restrictions imposed on resale buyers.
BMK