Maintenance Fee Question as well

[mnl312]

I'm in the same boat as the last post. I own two timeshares- one in Williamsburg, Virginia, and two weeks in Cape Cod. Both white/yellow times. I've tried to sell and trade them but no luck. The weeks are week 12 and 17 and 18. Because I am a teacher, my spring break changes every year and the times just don't work out. Trading is confusing and complicated for less desirable times. We thought we'd use them when we retired, but with the economy the way it is, retirement is far off. I'm at a loss as to what to do. Someone suggested posting them on EBAY for a small amount. The maintenance fees are coming due and will be a stretch to pay them. Any suggestions? Nancy

 

[roadtriper]

I'm in the same boat as the last post. I own two timeshares- one in Williamsburg, Virginia, and two weeks in Cape Cod. Both white/yellow times. I've tried to sell and trade them but no luck. The weeks are week 12 and 17 and 18. Because I am a teacher, my spring break changes every year and the times just don't work out. Trading is confusing and complicated for less desirable times. We thought we'd use them when we retired, but with the economy the way it is, retirement is far off. I'm at a loss as to what to do. Someone suggested posting them on EBAY for a small amount. The maintenance fees are coming due and will be a stretch to pay them. Any suggestions? Nancy

Assuming the Maint fees are due in Jan? even offring it up for sale your too late to have it closed and the new owners paying the fees. you can include the fees as part of the sale but your still going to need to pay them when due
so you don't end up with late fees, fines etc. from your resorts.

My suggestion... get the Maint fees paid, and then your new hobby for the next couple of months is "Rental Agent". find renters for the weeks to recoup all or most of the maint fees. family, friends, local classifieds, Craigs list. TUG classifieds, TUG last Min Rentals etc. even if you recoup 1/2 the maint fees it's better than nothing if you aren't going to use the units! then try selling them later in the year RT

 

[Talent312]

If you cannot sell or rent the property, and you can't talk the resort into accepting a deed-back, ultimately you can simply abandon the units, default and file Bankruptcy. It ain't pretty, but does discharge your financial liability.

 

[JudyS]

.....
My suggestion... get the Maint fees paid, and then your new hobby for the next couple of months is "Rental Agent". find renters for the weeks to recoup all or most of the maint fees. family, friends, local classifieds, Craigs list. TUG classifieds, TUG last Min Rentals etc. even if you recoup 1/2 the maint fees it's better than nothing if you aren't going to use the units! then try selling them later in the year RT

I think that renting off-season Williamsburg & Cape Cod weeks in this economy will be next to impossible. I just had a Week 52 at Park City that I had listed for months all over the place at $800, with no offers. I dropped the price to around $500 a week before check-in -- still no offers. I ended up renting it on December 28th -- the day AFTER the week started -- for just $250, to someone who wanted it for only part of the week. In general, I'd say renting off-season weeks is far harder than getting good exchanges for them. The rental market is just much more sensitive to season than the exchange companies are.

Nancy, I see two general approaches you can try:

1) Try to get rid of the weeks. You can try listing them on various sites (here, eBay, Redweek, Bidshares, Craigslist) for $1, and maybe offer to handle the closing yourself to reduce transfer costs. However, depending on how high the annual fees are, you may not get any takers. Some of those listing sites have fairly high listing fees ($35 for eBay, $50 for Redweek), so you may want to start by listing just one or two weeks, on one or two sites, to see how it goes.

Other approaches to getting rid of the weeks are: try donating them to a charity (they may or may not take them); offer to throw in the 2009 week with the deal (i.e, offer to give up on getting reimbursed for the MFs for 2009).

I would NOT pay any substantial fee to a "postcard company" to take the week off your hands. There will certainly be cheaper ways to dispose of the weeks. Also, do NOT pay any substantial upfront fee (more than $50) to anyone who says they can sell these weeks for you -- that will almost certainly be a scam.

2) Try again to exchange them. You CAN get good exchanges, even if you have off-season times. (And, there are far worse times in both Williamsburg and Cape Cod than what you own.) There are independent exchange companies that value all weeks (or all weeks of a give size) the same. There are also some locations that have lots of availability -- if you are still interested in Williamsburg and Cape Cod in the spring, you should have no trouble trading back to these locations at a time that fits your spring break. What company have you been using to trade?

 

[JudyS]

If you cannot sell or rent the property, and you can't talk the resort into accepting a deed-back, ultimately you can simply abandon the units, default and file Bankruptcy. It ain't pretty, but does discharge your financial liability.

Yikes! That would nuke your credit rating! It would have to be a choice between bankruptcy and buying food & medicine before I'd do that.

There are far better options, if there is no mortgage and it is just the MFs that are the problem. It would be possible, for instance, to trade these through a trading company that permits rentals of exchanges, and get an exchange with a better probability of renting out. That approach is a TON of work (I know because I've done it), but it would be better than bankruptcy.

For that matter, even paying someone a couple thousand dollars to take this off your hands would be better than bankruptcy. (I'm sure some Tugger would beat the postcard companies' price of $3500 per unit!)

 

[DeniseM]

Please see the article at the top of the Buying, Selling, Renting Board entitled, "How to Sell Your Timeshare."

As the other posters said, in this economy you will be virtually giving them away and might even have to pay the closing costs to get someone to take them. Your dilemma is whether to dump them, or keep them and make it work for you. At this late date, you will have to pay the maintenance fees, even if you sell them.

I'm a teacher too, and there are opportunities for exchanges during school holidays, but you will have to work at it, and that's not everyone's cup of tea.

Good luck!

 

[timeos2]

Nothing is ever easy

If you cannot sell or rent the property, and you can't talk the resort into accepting a deed-back, ultimately you can simply abandon the units, default and file Bankruptcy. It ain't pretty, but does discharge your financial liability.

The person taking this route has to remember to LIST the timeshare on any bankruptcy filing. Simply going through bankruptcy by itself without specifically including any liabilities such as a timeshare week does NOT remove the future liability and ownership of that week. It does remove the past due fees but they immediately start piling up again if it isn't a part of any Bankruptcy discharge.

If the week is a listed item then the bankruptcy process has to deal with the timeshare. They would most likely try to sell it or give it away - but they cannot settle the bankruptcy without handling all listed items (similar to an estate being handled). If the timeshare is not listed then it remains with the original owner and they are again subject to collection, fees, etc. You sure don't want to have that happen if you go through the process of a bankruptcy in part to get out of a timeshare obligation.

 

[sailingman22]

I would recommend checking with the management company that collects your maintenance fees. Some allow you to pay your maintenance fees quarterly.

 

[BSgueglia1]

I don't know what Im talking about, and Im new here so please go easy on me. Please correct me if Im wrong, too. It would seem to me that contacting the resorts and paying their fee to convert to the point system would be a good option. Thus, she'd have much more freedom and the ability to take trips on the 4 day weekends teachers get to enjoy sometimes. I don't know that all offer this, but my thinking is most do??? I know several in Williamsburg are in the point system.

Im trying to decide if I should convert and I cant decide. I sure wish there was some advice on the matter. I own at Ocean Sands in VA Bch. They want $2k to convert to points. Since I only paid $1 for the unit, that is in our price range. But, I just don't know if it would make sense for us. But..that's a whole other topic.

I apologize if the advice is not sound. It seems to make sense to me, but being very new to TS, I really dont KNOW what I'm talking about.

 

[mnl312]

Thanks

Thanks, all, for the advice. I'm going to pay the fees and hope I can still find someone to trade. Two for one sounds like a good deal to me I just have to find the right person. Even though the economy is bad, timeshares are still affordable if you know what you are doing. Unfortunately, I am a good teacher and not good at "timesharing". Cape Cod and Williamsburg, anyone?