Sticky - Give back your unwanted wyndham Timeshare - Wyndham Ovations / Wyndham Cares / Certified Exit

[tschwa2]

So called today and was told resale contracts not eligible to use the exit program. Apparently they made this change last month. So disappointed we didn’t get the ball rolling sooner.

Called again today.. was informed they are not taking Converted week contracts at this time. To try again at a later date.

Which resort do you own at?

 

[HitchHiker71]

Called again today.. was informed they are not taking Converted week contracts at this time. To try again at a later date.

That makes a lot more sense to me. CE has at times taken and not taken weeks or converted weeks based contracts for certain resorts. IME CE has limits for certain contract types at certain resorts that change over time. Once the ratio/threshold or maximum amount of weeks/points has been exceeded, the CE program won't take any more contracts until the amount on hand falls below a certain threshold, that's likely why they said to try again at a later date. The original "CE doesn't take resale" seems to be a default excuse that is used by all Wyndham departments when they don't have any other reason to give. It's the old "blame it on resale" approach.

 

[stuckeywig]

I own 2 fixed weeks at a Wyndham Resort (Shawnee in the Pocono Mountains). They were originally bought by my parents in the early 70s; When they no longer wanted to travel, they deeded them to my wife and me, and I have used them for over 20 years. My now ex-wife is still on the deed, but she does not want them either. Nor our adult children. I am now 73 and have too many health challenges to continue using them, I was hoping I was eligible for their CE program but was told we were not eligible. They gave me two exit companies to contact, supposedly with no upfront fees. They negotiate with the buyers for their fees. One is Fidelity Real estate 800-218-8221. And the other is Timeshare Broker Assoc. 877-624-6889. Does anyone know if they are legit?

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

Fidelity is legit, they’re just a resale broker, but given that those weeks have no value whatsoever, listing them with Fidelity is not going to work. You could attempt to give the weeks away on Tug with an incentive, but I doubt there would be any takers. Other option is to just default.

 

[paxsarah]

There was a post today (anonymous, but appears perfectly credible) in the Wyndham Timeshare Users Group detailing a resale owner's experience contacting CE and having two resale contracts accepted to give back. It sounds like they're really accepting contracts as they always have - there's a handful of locations they may not accept at any moment, and those tend to be the older locations.

 

[RENTER]

People are scared of the word foreclosure. But how many people in your life that you know have been foreclosed on, evicted, had their car repossessed, declared bankruptcy and still somehow survive. Someone I know was evicted from his home after not paying the mortgage for 5 years and the State is paying section 8 rent for him, his utilities, his health care, food. Yesterday he drove up in a new car. Granted this is not a situation many want to be in, but people do survive.

 

[TUGBrian]

would love to hear from someone who has called to surrender a resale contract in the past few weeks and was accepted!

I still have had no confirmation from wyndham despite a number of attempts and requests to rather significant executives.

I WANT this to be a mistake, as wyndham has always been the gold standard for deedback programs.

 

[paxsarah]

would love to hear from someone who has called to surrender a resale contract in the past few weeks and was accepted!

I have no reason to disbelieve the Facebook poster I mentioned above. The information they shared was detailed and they seemed to have a good understanding of their ownership and the system. They initiated the process this week.

 

[RENTER]

I am being a smart aleck and not serious, but I do wonder. It concerns people who are giving back their timeshares because Wyndham declared them a commercial operation and no longer allowed to rent. Since the timeshare is no longer worth anything compared to what they paid for it, can they write off the loss? Probably not but it may be worthwhile to look into it because it may be something no one considered, and they may be able to.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

I am being a smart aleck and not serious, but I do wonder. It concerns people who are giving back their timeshares because Wyndham declared them a commercial operation and no longer allowed to rent. Since the timeshare is no longer worth anything compared to what they paid for it, can they write off the loss? Probably not but it may be worthwhile to look into it because it may be something no one considered, and they may be able to.

No, it’s basically impossible under IRS rules for a fractional use timeshare. This website has a good explanation as to why:

How to Deduct a Loss on a Timeshare Sale

Learn about the tax issues you may face when you sell a timeshare property.

www.nolo.com

If a timeshare qualifies as rental property, losses incurred on its sale are tax deductible. However, this is rarely possible. A timeshare will qualify as a rental property only if:

• it was rented at fair market value to unrelated parties for 15 days or more during the year, and
• its owners did not personally use it for more than 14 days per year or 10% of the total days rented, whichever is greater.

When determining the rental and personal use days for the 15-day, 14-day, and 10% cutoffs, you must include the combined use of all the owners of the timeshare unit. The result is that personal use by any owner of a timeshare is considered personal use by all of the owners—for example, if you use your timeshare zero days, but the other owners use it 300 days, you have 300 days of personal use.

This makes it virtually impossible to satisfy the fewer-than-15-days or 10% personal use tests. For this reason, few timeshares can be classified as rental property.

 

[RENTER]

This issue does not affect me since I use the resorts for personal use so I cannot write it off as a loss. Again, I am being a smart aleck and not serious, just curious. I have no opinions to argue with people because I do not know. But in that NOLO article, it says it is rare if you treat it as a rental property. But you can do it if you treat it as a business and own it just for renting and not for any personal use.

So, if Wyndham declares you a commercial operation and you never used it, I wonder if you can write it off?

Going back to the NOLA article, it says at first owners and then later says all owners of the timeshare. I did further research and none said all owners. So, are we at what does is mean? What does commercial mean? What does owner mean?

 

[TUGBrian]

this was covered very succinctly by longtime TUGGER and cpa DaveM:

Income Tax Advice for Timeshare sales and rentals provided by a Certified Public Accountant

Income Tax advice for Timeshare owners

tug2.net

 

[stevenh21]

We have owned a 2BR unit at what used to be Fairfield Plantation in Villa Rica, Georgia, west of Atlanta. It is now known as Club Wyndham Villas at Fairfield. Our unit is part of the Tara Cove HOA. It is a fixed week 24 that we have owned for 35 years. We have visited 2 or 3 times and traded the remaining years in the old FAX system, and then with RCI. We tried unsuccessfully to convert to points about 3 years ago, and again last spring. July 16 I called Certified Exit to try to have them take it back. He took my information and thought there might be a possibility. He talked to someone in the Cares Dept. who then took over, but both gentlemen were on the line. I was told that Certified Exit can only be used if the HOA has an agreement with Wyndham to take back units and that Tara Cove ha no such agreement in place. I was then given the names of the two real estate companies that are often mentioned in this Sticky. I was encouraged to contact them, "It couldn't hurt to try."

 

[TUGBrian]

have been getting more and more folks emailing me after being rejected by certified exit. its very frustrating to hear and I still have hope that perhaps its just an "end of year" change with things going back to normal in january though sadly it will require folks to pay another years worth of maint fees!

will say that if the resort is only managed by wyndham, vs owned by wyndham that would explain a rejection. wyndham really has no way to "take that back and resell it" like they could with a resort they actually own. Sounds like that might be the case here with the resort still being independently owned, but wyndham manages it and as such your statements come with a wyndham logo on them?

have you reached out to the homeowners association directly to inquire about a deedback instead of wyndham?

 

[rickandcindy23]

@stevenh21 You could stop paying fees, but as Brian suggested, a call to the resort might work. After that, you can always just walk away.

I am in the process of trying to deed back a fixed week/ fixed unit in NC with Bluegreen and have been ignored, even though we paid the special assessments totaling nearly $3,000 over the last 3 years. I would bet we are up for another round and another increase of fees. I should have walked away before all of this.

 

[HitchHiker71]

have been getting more and more folks emailing me after being rejected by certified exit. its very frustrating to hear and I still have hope that perhaps its just an "end of year" change with things going back to normal in january though sadly it will require folks to pay another years worth of maint fees!

will say that if the resort is only managed by wyndham, vs owned by wyndham that would explain a rejection. wyndham really has no way to "take that back and resell it" like they could with a resort they actually own. Sounds like that might be the case here with the resort still being independently owned, but wyndham manages it and as such your statements come with a wyndham logo on them?

have you reached out to the homeowners association directly to inquire about a deedback instead of wyndham?

Thanks for providing this feedback Brian. From what I have observed of late, most of the rejections appear to be DI type contracts (weeks based contracts), or converted weeks based contracts - which are really still weeks based contracts in their system to the best of my understanding. I share your concern that CE seems to be backtracking of late, and I share your hope that this is only temporary based upon thresholds or something internal to Wyndham, and at some point these types of contracts will again be something CE will approve - though as you clearly indicated - if the resort isn't owned by Wyndham, CE isn't going to be able to take it back unless they have some kind of agreement in place with the ownership to do so (which is doubtful IMHO).

 

[bnoble]

My vague sense is that there has been an overall slowdown in travel. If true, this is likely to both decrease tour flow and increase the rate at which owners attempt to deed back their ownerships. Again if true, that would be a reasonable explanation for why Wydnahm might slow down their takeback rate via CE---which, again, I am not sure we even have firm evidence for beyond some anecdotal reports.

 

[stevenh21]

will say that if the resort is only managed by wyndham, vs owned by wyndham that would explain a rejection. wyndham really has no way to "take that back and resell it" like they could with a resort they actually own. Sounds like that might be the case here with the resort still being independently owned, but wyndham manages it and as such your statements come with a wyndham logo on them?

have you reached out to the homeowners association directly to inquire about a deedback instead of wyndham?

@TUGBrian We own three timeshares that have Wyndham affiliations, but are not owned or managed by Wyndham. The Georgia unit is listed in our Club Wyndham account as a fixed week and is used in the Wyndham provided RCI weeks account.
I have reached out to the HOA but mainly through 2 different employees that were in charge of billing for the weeks units. There are quite a few owners that are points owners. The first employee had her job for at least 20 years. She told me last year that I would have to sell or find someone to give it too. Two weeks ago I called the same office and I found out that person had retired. I talked to the new employee and was told the same information. As far as dealing directly with the HOA, that has been discouraged over the years.
Since that last conversation, someone affiliated with management called me and we have a possible solution. I don't want to jinx that. I will share here if it is successful.

 

[TUGBrian]

no doubt the initial responses when trying to deal with some independent resorts is usually slanted towards the negative! sometimes its a matter of simply getting ahold of the right person or simply being persistent.

EVERY resort and or association has to deal with surrenders and deedbacks because every resort/association has owners in default. As such in many cases it takes effort and persistence to convince the resort/association they are not going to get any more money from you and it would be cheaper/easier to work out a deedback willingly vs having to suffer thru months or years of default to end up in the same situation they are in now (in having to negotiate a surrender).

 

[dioxide45]

EVERY resort and or association has to deal with surrenders and deedbacks because every resort/association has owners in default.

They do, but sadly some just stick their heads in the sand and ignore the defaults and don't even bother to foreclose. There is no legal requirement that the HOA has to foreclose. Then when the resort gets around to cleaning things up or shutting down, it is a real nightmare. Sticking the head in the sand isn't the right approach, but for some resort it is the approach they take.

More smaller independent resorts really need to look to services like Lemonjuice Solutions. I don't know if there are other companies out there like them. The same resorts should probably avoid Capital Vacations.

 

[TUGBrian]

yep, its a very sad state of affairs for sure.