timeshare title

[DaveBirk]

We have deeds in Wyndham and they are registered in their respective counties in our trust. Wyndham wants us to amend our records with them to reflect the trust at $299.00 per contract. My question is since they are registered with the counties is this necessary in regard to a sale or our heirs should something happen to us ?

 

[Sloane S]

We have deeds in Wyndham and they are registered in their respective counties in our trust. Wyndham wants us to amend our records with them to reflect the trust at $299.00 per contract. My question is since they are registered with the counties is this necessary in regard to a sale or our heirs should something happen to us ?

I would suggest consulting with your estate planning attorney for that answer, but it appears you also have the question "is this necessary in order to allow Wyndham to continue to recognize us as owners with regards to usage so we can continue booking vacations?". It sounds as though you changed the deeds, but did not send the new ones to Wyndham with the fee to update their records?

 

[DaveBirk]

I would suggest consulting with your estate planning attorney for that answer, but it appears you also have the question "is this necessary in order to allow Wyndham to continue to recognize us as owners with regards to usage so we can continue booking vacations?".

We did this in 2007 but are updating our trust. We've never had a problem with usage. My main concern is if something happens to us or if we decide to sell. Our attorney won't deal with out of state deeds.

 

[Jan M.]

What Wyndham is telling you is that although the deeds are recorded in the trust name in their respective counties, your Wyndham account doesn't reflect that change. At some point I'd think this is going to cause a headache for your heirs. The fee is $299 per deed now but how much will it be in 5, 10 or more years? Down the road the executor(s) of your estate will have to submit death certificates, proof of probate and complete even more paperwork than they're already dealing with to get this done. I'm not sure but I thought someone said that takes a couple of months and that while it's being done they won't be able to use the account. Those are questions I'd be asking Wyndham.

Here's what I'd be worried about. Owner A purchases a deed that's part of a trust from Owner B. Unfortunately Owner B and their family when they set up the trust changed the name on the deeds but never sent Wyndham the paperwork and $299 fees to have it changed to the trust in their Wyndham account. So Wyndham still shows the owner in their records as the individual(s), not the trust. Owners A and B use a closing company like LT Transfers to handle the sale and Owner A is now the owner of record on that deed in that county. They complete the next step which is sending a copy of that new deed along with the appropriate paperwork and a payment of $299 to Wyndham to complete the transfer to Owner A. After waiting however many months for Wyndham to finally process it, Wyndham rejects the transfer because the seller name doesn't agree with what they show as the owner name. So Owners A and B are back to day one with redoing everything and waiting however many more months. Owner B is on the hook for the maintenance fees this whole time and Owner A has been promised in the sales agreement that they will receive points in 2020. It's now late enough in the year that there's no way the points will be in Owner A's account in 2020 and Owner B is in violation of the sales agreement.

 

[DaveBirk]

What Wyndham is telling you is that although the deeds are recorded in the trust name in their respective counties, your Wyndham account doesn't reflect that change. At some point I'd think this is going to cause a headache for your heirs. The fee is $299 per deed now but how much will it be in 5, 10 or more years? Down the road the executor(s) of your estate will have to submit death certificates, proof of probate and complete even more paperwork than they're already dealing with to get this done. I'm not sure but I thought someone said that takes a couple of months and that while it's being done they won't be able to use the account. Those are questions I'd be asking Wyndham.

Here's what I'd be worried about. Owner A purchases a deed that's part of a trust from Owner B. Unfortunately Owner B and their family when they set up the trust changed the name on the deeds but never sent Wyndham the paperwork and $299 fees to have it changed to the trust in their Wyndham account. So Wyndham still shows the owner in their records as the individual(s), not the trust. Owners A and B use a closing company like LT Transfers to handle the sale and Owner A is now the owner of record on that deed in that county. They complete the next step which is sending a copy of that new deed along with the appropriate paperwork and a payment of $299 to Wyndham to complete the transfer to Owner A. After waiting however many months for Wyndham to finally process it, Wyndham rejects the transfer because the seller name doesn't agree with what they show as the owner name. So Owners A and B are back to day one with redoing everything and waiting however many more months. Owner B is on the hook for the maintenance fees this whole time and Owner A has been promised in the sales agreement that they will receive points in 2020. It's now late enough in the year that there's no way the points will be in Owner A's account in 2020 and Owner B is in violation of the sales agreement.

Hope I got this right The main problem would be a sale due to our death. Since they are in a trust they wouldn't have to go through probate and as far as showing a death certificate that is true with any of our assets. Bank accounts, IRA's, insurance policies etc. Do you agree or am I missing something. Thanks for the input

 

[Jan M.]

Not sure that a probable future sale is the main problem; it's just one that I that I remember reading someone's post about and have a little experience with.

I don't know how it came to Wyndham's attention but if Wyndham is contacting you about it you may want to consider taking care of it so it doesn't in some way bite you in the butt later on.

I'm hoping someone else who has their ownership in a trust or is more knowledgeable about them will post.

 

[Sandi Bo]

Not sure that a probable future sale is the main problem; it's just one that I that I remember reading someone's post about and have a little experience with.

I don't know how it came to Wyndham's attention but if Wyndham is contacting you about it you may want to consider taking care of it so it doesn't in some way bite you in the butt later on.

I'm hoping someone else who has their ownership in a trust or is more knowledgeable about them will post.

Trying to follow along, if I understand correctly, the issue is the deeds were updated at some point, to be titled in the trust but not sent to Wyndham and updated in the Wyndham account? So in my mind, it's like a transfer (just like the trust were buying it from someone else) and only half of the process was completed. Not sure the fact that it is a trust is relevant, more so that the 1st half (deed) doesn't correlate now with the 2nd half (Wyndham account).

Not all of my contracts are in our trust. But for those that are, the deed reads something like this (an example of a deed in our trust and my daughters name):

This deed shall operate to perform the transfer of title from Billie and Bob Brown, Wife and Husband, as Joint Tenants with Right of Survivorship ("Grantor(s)" to John Doe and Mary Doe, Trustees of the Doe Trust dated Jan 14, 2010, with full authority and power to buy, sell, trade, exchange, mortgage or otherwise deal with the assets of the trust as may be necessary in the best interest of the trust, and Jane Doe, a single woman, as Joint Tenants, whose address is 123 Main Street, Any Town, USA 12345 ("Grantee(s)"):

I'm with Jan, sadly, it looks like the 2nd part of the process (including paying Wyndham $299 per contract) needs to be done so that the Wyndham account is in alignment with the how the deeds are now titled and recorded.

I am surprised that Wyndham contacted OP, maybe OP inquired with Wyndham? Do audits like that really happen? Regardless, my guess would be it would be discovered when someone becomes a trustee (in the current trust (say someone were to become a trustee besides John or Mary Doe, in my example)) and would make for confusion and difficultly for the new trustee or whomever is executing the transfer. I'd hate to pay the $299 per contract, but I would so it's taken care of now.

 

[jebloomquist]

Creating a trust is a task that I have been ignoring for too long. All of the co-owners in my account are there because they are listed on one or more deeds in the account.

So, for each contract, do I also have to go to its county of record and perform all necessary actions to convert each from ownership by the individual owners listed to ownership by the trust? Along with getting a trust attorney, is there a department within Wyndham, say Owner Care, or Title Transfer that might offer constructive suggestions?

SandiBo suggested that I could create a trust and move contracts to it one at a time, not all in one big transfer. At last count I have 35 contracts, and at $299 per for Wyndham, it totals $10,465. This is not just pocket change. Add this to all county's reregistration fees, plus a trust attorney. I now remember why I keep ignoring the idea of a trust.

Is there someone out there who had an account with close to 20 contracts registered in 10 different counties, then created a trust and transferred the contracts into the trust?
What did you discover? What were the problems? How much did it cost? How long did it take?

In addition, did you have any co-owners who had already passed on? How was it handled?

I welcome all responses.

Jim

 

[Jan M.]

Creating a trust is a task that I have been ignoring for too long. All of the co-owners in my account are there because they are listed on one or more deeds in the account.

So, for each contract, do I also have to go to its county of record and perform all necessary actions to convert each from ownership by the individual owners listed to ownership by the trust? Along with getting a trust attorney, is there a department within Wyndham, say Owner Care, or Title Transfer that might offer constructive suggestions?

SandiBo suggested that I could create a trust and move contracts to it one at a time, not all in one big transfer. At last count I have 35 contracts, and at $299 per for Wyndham, it totals $10,465. This is not just pocket change. Add this to all county's reregistration fees, plus a trust attorney. I now remember why I keep ignoring the idea of a trust.

Is there someone out there who had an account with close to 20 contracts registered in 10 different counties, then created a trust and transferred the contracts into the trust?
What did you discover? What were the problems? How much did it cost? How long did it take?

In addition, did you have any co-owners who had already passed on? How was it handled?

I welcome all responses.

Jim

If you have a mix of developer and resale deeds you might consider only putting the developer purchased deeds into the trust.

 

[bogey21]

This uncertainty is why I never put any of my Weeks into a Trust...

Just guessing but let's assume that Wyndham doesn't know you put your Weeks into your Trust and usage goes without a snag for years. What happens if you sell, or otherwise want to transfer one of the Weeks? The Deed facilitating the sale or transfer sent to Wyndham would show the Tranferor not being the owner of record in Wyndham's records. Again just guessing, but I'll bet that more than likely Wyndham would not approve the sale or transfer to the new Owner...

George

 

[DaveBirk]

Not sure that a probable future sale is the main problem; it's just one that I that I remember reading someone's post about and have a little experience with.

I don't know how it came to Wyndham's attention but if Wyndham is contacting you about it you may want to consider taking care of it so it doesn't in some way bite you in the butt later on.

I'm hoping someone else who has their ownership in a trust or is more knowledgeable about them will post.

FYI Wyndham did not contact me in regard to the deed. We thought that we had forgotten to include one deed into our trust hence we contacted them only to find out there was another step and that none of our deeds, in Windham's eyes, were shown to be in the trust. Spacing them out seems like a good idea and ease the $$$$ burden of completing the transfer.

 

[Sandi Bo]

It is challenging to get reliable information anywhere. It was a major concern of my Dad's. Don't laugh, but he would get conflicting advice from sales people (including that he could split the account 5 ways and we'd all retain VIP platinum (which is not true), others would try to sell him more so we could all have enough to be VIP platinum on our own). Salespeople have no clue, and quite honestly, I don't think anyone in Wyndham titling does either. The best advice as far as putting in a trust or not is to talk to an estate planning attorney. But there again, timeshares are confusing (doubtful an estate planning attorney will understand you need to change the recorded deed AND do a transfer within the Wyndham system).

I like Jan's suggestion to put the developer point stuff in the trust, and not worry so much about the other. Any resale stuff isn't worth much on paper anyways, so why worry much about probate? The stuff of value is the developer points so protect that. Then again, we're the only ones who really know the value and difference thereof between developer and resale contracts (how would that conversation go in probate court?. The thing I learned enough about to help guide our decisions for my father and my siblings, was that it was important to keep the developer stuff together and never split it up (so it won't lose it's VIP platinum). We each said we're in or not, and if not there was no monetary compensation - because split up the platinum account becomes worthless.

As far as transferring an existing contract into a trust, I do think you need to do both parts. 1) Update and record the deed 2) Send updated deed to Wyndham title and have them complete the transfer on the Wyndham side. A reliable transfer company, like LT Transfers often recommended here on TUG, would facilitate the whole process, I'm fairly certain. They have handled transfers (purchases) for me in the past. After recording the deed, they sent the information on to Wyndham. LT Transfers advised me when it was complete.

If you have an existing contract, say under Jane and John Doe, when you book a reservation, you'll put Jane Doe or John Doe as the guest. If you transfer that contract to a trust, the names would show up as Jane Doe, trustee or John Does, trustee - when you select the name for the guest on your reservation. The resort doesn't care if your reservation shows Jane Doe or Jane Doe, trustee, they are going to check you in.

If you have updated and recorded the deed so you are now Jane and John Doe, trustees, but in the Wyndham system you are still seeing only Jane and John Doe as the owners, you won't have trouble booking and using your ownership, no one is the wiser. But come time to sell or transfer to another owner, I suspect Wyndham is going to want their system to match the recorded deed. Since this is all so confusing anyways, to those of us that have some clue as to what is going on, one can only imagine what it'll be like for a newby trying to wade through this stuff. So, IMO, having the recorded deed and the Wyndham system aligned property is the best thing to do. Sadly it'll cost big bucks, as far as I know. Ovations (legacy or tribute or maybe now it's call Certified Exit) may waive some fees for family transfers, I'm not clear on that. But my best guess is they'll first want to align the recorded deed and Wyndham account first.

My best guess. The only rule with Wyndham - you do the best you can, make your best guesses, and then see what really happens. Things are not consistent, processes aren't well defined, and they may handle it for you without charging, or handle it later for without aligning, you never really know til it happens.

For me: All developer contracts are deeded in my father's trust. He already had them set up that way. I have one resale contract in my father's name and mine (yes they will link a John Doe, Trust contract with a John Doe contract (puts everything in one Wyndham account). The remaining resale contracts have my name and whomever I wanted to add so they show up as owners. I honestly have quite a mess and need to document better how one will get rid of all this if no one wants it. I hope some of it could be sold resale for some profit. But also rely on Ovations to take things if people don't want to mess around with it and just want to walk away. My kids want nothing to do with it, but I have a nephew who I suspect may take it over some day. Trying to position things so whatever needs to happen, can, with no financial burden on anyone and hopefully family will continue to use and enjoy it for many years to come.