• The TUGBBS forums are completely free and open to the public and exist as the absolute best place for owners to get help and advice about their timeshares for more than 30 years!

    Join Tens of Thousands of other Owners just like you here to get any and all Timeshare questions answered 24 hours a day!
  • TUG started 31 years ago in October 1993 as a group of regular Timeshare owners just like you!

    Read about our 31st anniversary: Happy 31st Birthday TUG!
  • TUG has a YouTube Channel to produce weekly short informative videos on popular Timeshare topics!

    Free memberships for every 50 subscribers!

    Visit TUG on Youtube!
  • TUG has now saved timeshare owners more than $24,000,000 dollars just by finding us in time to rescind a new Timeshare purchase! A truly incredible milestone!

    Read more here: TUG saves owners more than $24 Million dollars
  • Sign up to get the TUG Newsletter for free!

    Tens of thousands of subscribing owners! A weekly recap of the best Timeshare resort reviews and the most popular topics discussed by owners!
  • Our official "end my sales presentation early" T-shirts are available again! Also come with the option for a free membership extension with purchase to offset the cost!

    All T-shirt options here!
  • A few of the most common links here on the forums for newbies and guests!

I'm giving my TS to a church...

K

koupe377

newbie
Joined
Nov 9, 2007
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Location
North Florida
I'm thinking of giving my TS away to a church. If i do this can I write this off as a donation? and if so do I write off what I paid for it [less interest] or do I have does the write off amount haveto come from comps?
 
You can only claim fair market value, and you better be able to defend that valuation if you are ever audited. It will be no where near what you paid (think pennies on the dollar). Just looking at asking prices on sites that advertise TS sales is not realistic. You need to find actual selling prices.

Kurt
 
Did the church already agree to take it?
How did you find them?
Are there any costs to you?
 
Its my cousin's church, thats the only reason I'll do it. The Church is here in north Florida and the TS is Vistana Villages in Orlando. There is always church stuff going on down there. He is the one talking to them about it. If is doesn't go through then I will sell it for ridiculously cheap.

hmm Fair Market Value... well the value of all real estate has fallen, and the prices they are at, well, I don't think they are "fair" so I'll write off what I think is "fair" instead of the Unfair Market Value.

But how do you get comps for time share's. Its not as easy as looking up county appraiser/tax collector info for residential on the county website.
 
You only have a write off if you transfer ownership of the unit to a church. If you are only referring to transferring use of one week (for example, in an auction to support a ministry), there is no deduction.

If you donating the entire ownership, as mentioned above your deduction is the fair market value. Fair market value reflects actually selling prices in the resale market, and FMV is, with few exceptions, only a small fraction (often less than 10%) of what the unit originally sold for.

You don't get to define what "Fair" means. That is defined by the IRS in its rules governing donations. And yes, it might be as easy as looking up county appraiser/tax collector info on the county website. If the property is deeded, deed transfers will be recorded the same as with residential real estate.
 
Last edited:
You can find comps on ebay from ended auctions by logging in, going to the timeshare area, search for the TS by name, and then use the menu on the left to search for completed listings. Because of the special assessments, there are a lot on the market now.

If the church agrees to take it make sure they know they will have to pay the maintenance fee and special assessment if it doesn't sell before they are due (likely.)

This link will take you to all of the current, completed Starwood listings - http://completed.shop.ebay.com/item...mdoZRealQ2dEstateQQ_pcatsZ10542QQ_sacatZ15897

BTW - if you decide not to sell it, come see us on the TUG Starwood board - we can help you get more out of your timeshare.
 
Last edited:
T_R_Oglodyte said:
only a small fraction (often less than 10%) of what the unit originally sold for.

You don't get to define what "Fair" means. That is defined by the IRS in its rules governing donations.
Click to expand...

Yeah I know.. I was only being an ass, shaking my fist in the face of the IRS. But thanks for informing that it is possible to find sale info from the county.
 
koupe377 said:
Its my cousin's church, thats the only reason I'll do it. The Church is here in north Florida and the TS is Vistana Villages in Orlando. There is always church stuff going on down there. He is the one talking to them about it. If is doesn't go through then I will sell it for ridiculously cheap.

hmm Fair Market Value... well the value of all real estate has fallen, and the prices they are at, well, I don't think they are "fair" so I'll write off what I think is "fair" instead of the Unfair Market Value.

But how do you get comps for time share's. Its not as easy as looking up county appraiser/tax collector info for residential on the county website.
Click to expand...

This is a valuable property. If you have mandatory Staroptions, an annual week is worth about $6K. I would never give it away. I don't get it. :shrug:
 
It is very generous to give away Vistana Villages. You would have no difficulty in selling it through eBay and would get $ in hand vs. a tax write off. Review the sticky How to sell your timeshare it will be worth a few thousand dollars to you.
 
rickandcindy23 said:
This is a valuable property. If you have mandatory Staroptions, an annual week is worth about $6K. I would never give it away. I don't get it. :shrug:
Click to expand...

Yeah I get Staroptions every year and its 1 bedroom, week 19, floating. I just figured the market for everything is so bad that it would take forever to sell it. I looked on Ebay and it didn't look like anything was even being bid on.

Over the next few years I am going to be splitting my time between here and countries in Asia so I don't really care about hanging out in Orlando for a week.

I guess I may reconsider giving it away then cause of course getting some money back out of it would be nice. Like I said I mentioned it to my cousin about talking with his church. Honestly I'm not a religous person so just in general I wouldn't be giving anything to a church.

thanks for the info
 
Last edited:
I can't imagine a church would want to get tied down to a timeshare. Make sure both parties are agreeing to the same thing.
 
koupe377,

If you are travelling a lot or will be living partially abroad, you might want to look if some of the SVO properties can be of interesting to you for vacations or stopovers since you have staroptions. I know when I came back from 6 months in NZ, I stopped off in Hawaii for a short stay, albit using my hotel points.

Sounds like you paid a lot more for it then it is worth now. If you bought it from the developers, you might be able to transfer them to starpoints (SPG FF points) and that can be used for hotels. It may not be a great exchange rate but sometimes you can find great values for redemption in Asia.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top