My $0.02 worth...
I really think all LLC's should be illegal. So much fraud- not only in the timeshare business but in real estate and elsewhere. I can't believe the government allows this to go on.
I have absolutely
no use or respect for attempts to hide behind the anonymity of a convenient corporate veil contrived and created
solely as a "timeshare exit strategy" to (attempt to) exercise without any consequences if / when the ownership happens to become "inconvenient" or when the cash profits from rentals stop rolling on in.
The applicable standards of proof for a criminal fraud case may be beyond the appropriate scope of this particular discussion however.
I can understand and appreciate the creation and legitimate use of a LLC in
other business arenas. For example, if a legitimate business enterprise fails after it's founder(s) have invested
their own (now lost) money, should
all of that founder(s)' other personal assets (real estate, motor vehicles, bank accounts, etc.) then also become exposed and available to be attached and liquidated, potentially leaving people without even so much as the roof over their heads?
It's admittedly a very subjective distinction that I make here. In the failed legitimate business example, individuals lose their initial invested money. Hopefully, few other voluntarily invested individuals also get hurt. However, the contrived LLC skulking away from timeshare ownership responsibility immediately and directly hurts lots of other blameless individual owners who then have to immediately (and involuntarily) pick up the financial slack to keep the place afloat. Let's not just conveniently ignore the fact that the timeshare facility hasn't failed, it's only that the LLC timeshare owner has skulked away into the mist. The other remaining (non-LLC) timeshare owners never "invested" in the contrived LLC, they only bought into their timeshare intervals and property, knowingly and voluntarily accepting
their contractual responsibilities.
To suggest that "the HOA should just take back" ownerships that people previously (freely and willfully)
chose to purchase (...and not from the HOA, I should point out) is just a terminally lame and entirely unpersuasive bit of illogic. The HOA might choose to do so, if in the best interests of all other owners, but the HOA certainly has no legal or moral or ethical obligation or responsibility to do so. The HOA responsibility is to always look out for the best interests of
all owners there.
It could certainly be argued that this is a very subjective "pick and choose" viewpoint. It is indeed --- no doubt about it and I will readily admit that without apology.
I also readily acknowledge that this perspective is from that of a small, independent timeshare facility interval owner, without regard to any of the "big chains" with deep pockets lurking "behind the curtain". Meanwhile however, there will be
no anonymous LLC timeshare ownerships accepted or acknowledged at any of the independent timeshare facilities at which we own intervals, including one where I sit as an elected BoD member. Don't like it? Thinking "you can't just
do that"? Sue us!
