Events seem strangely "out of sequence" here to me...
Our home resort in Florida is offering to buy back our weeks and we're thinking of taking advantage of the offer. It's part of the resort owner services. We've owned the weeks for awhile, used it every year and enjoyed it. They have a program in place to resell it. As I understand it, we sign the deed over to a reseller and when the week sells, we get paid the agreed amount. The reseller is Cocoa Beach Development, Inc. <snip>
Personally, I would not sign (or recommend others signing) a deed over to a new "grantee"
before at least
some good faith deposit money from the buyer has been produced and held in
independent escrow --- assuming of course that the interval actually has some resale market value in the first place.
Once a new deed is recorded, you've relinquished ownership. What exactly is your leverage that this "Development" entity will actually pay you, up to a year after you've signed over your deed? And what is your assurance or leverage that the "Development" entity will
record a new deed in
their name promptly, thereby releasing you from future maint. fee and / or future special assessment responsibility? As long as the resort (appropriately) regards
you as the owner of record,
you (i.e., not the "Development" entity) will receive the bills.
The "out of sequence" process and events you have described above simply does
not make sense
or pass the sniff test IMnsHO, but if the interval has little or no resale market value anyhow (I have no idea), then the only
immediate risk to you is loss of access to the interval for a 12 month period (...and who will pay the maintenance fees or any unexpected special assessments during that one year period?)
Another possibility enters my mind. Is it possible that what the "Development" entity wants you to sign is
not actually a new deed but instead a Power of Attorney, authorizing them to sell the interval
on your behalf? Your mention of a "pre-agreed amount" makes me wonder about this, since it makes more sense that a third party would seek to sell the interval via PoA for more than the "agreed" amount and pocket the difference, with absolutely no risk or "up front" investment on their part, paying you
only if / when they can peddle the interval to a new buyer (...at a profit, of course), with no risk on their part since
you remain owner until / unless a new buyer is found. I dunno, but that sure makes a lot more sense to me than the unlikely "sign over your deed now, but receive no payment at all yet" scenario.
I would respectfully suggest that you get a
lot more clarity and specific details directly from this "Development" entity, particularly in regard to whether this is actually and literally a deed transfer (with prompt official recording thereof) without any "consideration" (...shaky, at best) or merely the execution of Power of Attorney to authorize them to
attempt to sell your interval during what sounds (to me) like a 12 month "exclusive listing" period; obviously two
radically different situations.
