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Transfer of title

Missmeggs

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Who would handle the transfer of title when I sell my timeshare? I live in Australia and the timeshare unit is in USA.
 

Carolinian

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The state the timeshare is located in will matter if it is a deeded week. Some states mandate that only attorneys can prepare deeds, and that means attorneys licensed in that state. Of course most of those allow the seller to prepare the deed themselves as long as they do not charge for the deed preparation. Depending on the state, paying a third party who is not a licensed attorney in that state to prepare a deed may be a violation of the law. In North Carolina, for example, a third party preparing a deed can be charged with misdemeanor Practicing Law Without a License if they do it free, but it becomes a felony if they charge for it. Reputable timeshare transfer companies have arrangements with properly licensed attorneys in those states, but some less reputable ones will do it themselves and keep their fingers crossed no one finds out.

As a timeshare HOA officer on the NC Outer Banks, I have seen quite a few defective deeds prepared by non-attorneys who did not know what they were doing, some being the seller themselves which was not a violation of the law, but their defective deed failed to properly transfer title. I have seen key parts of deeds left out, property descriptions incomplete or even or the wrong resort, failure to use the right type of language to create the type of ownership desired, and lots of other things. And the Register of Deeds is usually happy to record those defective deeds that are not valid to transfer title.

One HOA bulk sold over 100 HOA owned weeks to a reseller in Nevada which then resort all but one of them. The reseller itself had its staff prepare the deeds (which would have been legal except that they were a corporation) and they used a "go by" deed they copied from the Register of Deeds, just changing the unit and week numbers. The problem was that they only changed the unit and week number in a box that was a convenience for the Register of Deeds, but not in the operative part of the property description. Every deed they recorded legally conveyed the unit / week in the "go by" deed which they never even owned in the first place. The HOA secretary caught it after all but one of the weeks had been resold and demanded the reseller fix the problem. Instead the reseller quitclaimed all the weeks it had bought back to the HOA and told them to deal with it. The HOA attorney ended up offering a special price for those owners to do a proper quitclaim from the HOA to them so they had legal title to their weeks. A few never took advantage of that offer and kept paying the m/f and the HOA kept letting them use their weeks, even though legal title was screwed up.

The best bet on transfering title is to call the Register / Recorder of Deeds in the county where the timeshare is located and ask that office for a recomendation on deed preparation. They could probably also tell you if that state requires a lawyer to do it or not. That varies by state.
 

punegirl

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What if it is membership contract of 99 years minus usage of few ? The resort asked to complete a document with buyer, seller name, address, phone, signature and asked to get seller signatures notarized. They said that’s it + resort transfer fees. Do you experts see any gotchas in this? Lt transfer kind of agreed that they may not be needed but we’re not 100% sure. What should happen to make sure the transfer completed legally?
 

CaliJoe

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Outside the US, an apostille stamp certifying the signatories is equivalent to a notarized document in the US. Look online to see the nearest place where you can get an apostille stamp. Notarization at a US embassy can also work but more complicated/expensive.
 

Carolinian

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Outside the US, an apostille stamp certifying the signatories is equivalent to a notarized document in the US. Look online to see the nearest place where you can get an apostille stamp. Notarization at a US embassy can also work but more complicated/expensive.

National laws in foreign countries can vary, as can laws of US states as to what they will recognize. Indeed, it may come down to convincing the local register of deeds. Notarization at a US Embassy is not that difficult and is sure to be accepted.
 
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