How to get rid of a timeshare

Bill

Bill

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A while back I inherited a 2 week fixed location timeshare that is too far away from us to be of any use. Thus, we want to be rid of the thing (ie, ditch the mx fees).

Looking on the internet there is conflicting info and lots of scams offering to rid folks of timeshares. Anyone here gotten rid of a timeshare?

I'd be perfectly happy to give the thing away, just want it gone.
 
Where is the time share located?
 
You can barely give away timeshares. They are a horrible investment and often times worth nothing but emotional capital.

I think you should check with these guys: http://www.tug2.net/

They give free advice to walk you through the process of selling. I have seen them interviewed on news reports about time shares and the difficulties in selling them.
 
I actually had some great vacations trading my time share and went to a lot of places. The part about it that became more of a jail sentence is that we HAD to go somewhere or loose the week. We were limited as to how many weeks we could bank. Our week was not fixed so we had some flexibility.
 
Was the deed (or whatever they call it for a TS) transferred to your name as part of the inheritance? If not, can't you just do nothing and eventually the TS complex will repop it? You save the mx fees and eventually they take it back.
 
Deed was transfered, can't just skip out on the mx fees, or they forclose and then ding the hell out of your credit rating.
 
Geico266 said:
Never understood the whole time share thing. Why lock yourself in?
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I know one guy that has a timeshare that he loves. But he has never stayed in it. He is in some sort of club that lets you trade time with other people that never use their time share. He takes his vacations wherever he finds an interesting timeshare in an interesting place whenever he needs it.

For the OP, give us some details about yours. It might be of interest to someone else given different circumstances. For instance, I live in Florida. If it is NOT in Florida, I might like to be able to offer it to my relatives so they go somewhere else for their vacation.
 
JOhnH said:
I know one guy that has a timeshare that he loves. But he has never stayed in it. He is in some sort of club that lets you trade time with other people that never use their time share. He takes his vacations wherever he finds an interesting timeshare in an interesting place whenever he needs it.

For the OP, give us some details about yours. It might be of interest to someone else given different circumstances. For instance, I live in Florida. If it is NOT in Florida, I might like to be able to offer it to my relatives so they go somewhere else for their vacation.
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They recently came out with a program to allow the timeshare to be converted to a "points" based system and you can then use the points at resorts all around the country. But, nothing is free with timeshare systems, to convert to points is a $3500 fee.

It seems one can sell planes and cars and houses and you name it but a timeshare is a pain in the ass for life.

The last few years I've rented out those two weeks, but once you pay mx fees and then income tax on the rent you might be lucky to net a couple of hundred bucks. Not worth the PITA factor.
 
tmyers said:
Good Luck, When I divorced 8 years ago we were supposed to sell our time share in Grand Cayman and split the money. It was valued at about $22K. I looked long and hard and could not find a reputable time share re-seller. Most want upfront money for advertising and then you never hear from them.

I convinced her that she wanted it and even ended up paying the transfer costs to give it to her. Best money I ever spent as she now has the $900 Mx fee every year.

I tried to give it back to the resort and they didn't even want it, all they wanted was my Mx money.
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I second that one. Got timeshare on honeymoon (she wanted it) when we got divorced she bought me out of it. I used it with her 4 times in 6 years of marriage. Never again will I get a timeshare.
 
Geico266 said:
Never understood the whole time share thing. Why lock yourself in?
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I agree. We ended up doing the Disney Vacation Club which is basically a glorified timeshare. It does let you move points around to the adjacent years, and there are several places to go. The flexibility makes it worth it for us.
 
rbridges said:
I agree. We ended up doing the Disney Vacation Club which is basically a glorified timeshare. It does let you move points around to the adjacent years, and there are several places to go. The flexibility makes it worth it for us.
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Dad also left us points in Wyndham, and that I find very useful. They have resorts all over the country and if I play the game well I get two high weeks at desirable locations (like Destin or Myrtle Beach) plus a long weekend somewhere for ~$1600. That isn't a bad deal, and the Wyndham resorts are very nice with many pools, lazy rivers, activity rooms, etc.

Wyndham I will keep, that other one has to go.
 
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Details Bill, details.

What? When? Where? etc...
 
We got the timeshare pitch once (and will NEVER make that mistake again). It was only $150K to buy in... and then we'd get two weeks a year for ONLY the cost of a high end luxury hotel per night. Extra cost for holiday seasons, of course. And you could (in theory) swap with other timeshares in different places, but only through the TS company and only with additional fees, and with absolutely no guarantees of anything.

WTF? Worst deal I ever saw in my entire life.
 
My in-laws have a Marriot in Hilton Head. The week is in December.:rolleyes2:
Not worth anything in trade, and the area is so overbuilt that it's an eyesore.

The damn thing is an albatross.
 
DaleB said:
We got the timeshare pitch once (and will NEVER make that mistake again). It was only $150K to buy in... and then we'd get two weeks a year for ONLY the cost of a high end luxury hotel per night. Extra cost for holiday seasons, of course. And you could (in theory) swap with other timeshares in different places, but only through the TS company and only with additional fees, and with absolutely no guarantees of anything.

WTF? Worst deal I ever saw in my entire life.
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We used to go to the Sheraton in Puerto Vallarta every year. They had a timeshare there adjacent to the hotel and if you took the tour and pitch you got a free breakfast and 15% off all your food and drinks at the hotel for the rest of the stay. We had our kids with us back then and $15 really added up. It took about two hours the first day. The places were very nice and the tour was nice. And you got drinks at poolside while they gave you the pitch. We took that tour three or four times. Anyway, the last time we took it they actually got mad at us when we told them we had been through it so many times and we were just doing it for the discount. But the thing is, we never got a timeshare, but I could see where it would be a nice deal for some people. I don't think that it would work for me, but some friends of ours have two timeshares and they seem to like it. Each to their own is what I say. Everyone is different.
 
asgcpa said:
I second that one. Got timeshare on honeymoon (she wanted it) when we got divorced she bought me out of it. I used it with her 4 times in 6 years of marriage. Never again will I get a timeshare.
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It sounds like the consensus is that the best way to get rid of a timeshare is to get a divorce.
 
Clark1961 said:
It sounds like the consensus is that the best way to get rid of a timeshare is to get a divorce.
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I thought it was more like the way to assure a divorce is to buy a timeshare.
 
Maxmosbey said:
We used to go to the Sheraton in Puerto Vallarta every year. They had a timeshare there adjacent to the hotel and if you took the tour and pitch you got a free breakfast and 15% off all your food and drinks at the hotel for the rest of the stay. We had our kids with us back then and $15 really added up. It took about two hours the first day. The places were very nice and the tour was nice. And you got drinks at poolside while they gave you the pitch. We took that tour three or four times. Anyway, the last time we took it they actually got mad at us when we told them we had been through it so many times and we were just doing it for the discount. But the thing is, we never got a timeshare, but I could see where it would be a nice deal for some people. I don't think that it would work for me, but some friends of ours have two timeshares and they seem to like it. Each to their own is what I say. Everyone is different.
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I went to one of these breakfasts at a Sheraton in Puerto Vallarta and to my shock, the person I was with who was my flying buddy actually bought a share. I think he and his family enjoy it. It would never occur to me to buy a timeshare. I'm not really into resorts nor would I want to be locked into a schedule.
 
We've gone to a few of the pitches down in Nassau in exchange for $100 cash. It really wasn't worth sitting there for two hours. 2 people for 2 hours = $25/hr...how stupid was that? The week-long vacation was what we'd been looking forward to all year and we were throwing away 2 hours of it. But I have to admit that it is kind of fun watching the pitch and the other folks signing up.

They are very persuasive sales people and a lot of people signed up. I could never wrap my head around why, since the annual mx fees were what you'd pay for just renting a hotel room for the week.
 
Bill Jennings said:
A while back I inherited a 2 week fixed location timeshare that is too far away from us to be of any use. Thus, we want to be rid of the thing (ie, ditch the mx fees).

Looking on the internet there is conflicting info and lots of scams offering to rid folks of timeshares. Anyone here gotten rid of a timeshare?

I'd be perfectly happy to give the thing away, just want it gone.
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It's a shame you didn't reject it from the inheritance, but I suppose for future reference...

You don't have to accept anything that you're given in a will. Of course, most people do accept whatever they get. But there's a legal term for it that I can't remember, where you basically reject whatever part of the inheritance you don't want. What happens to it at that point isn't your problem, the timeshare company would have to just repossess it since nobody'd be paying the maintenance fees.

I know if my parents (or anybody else) had a timeshare, there's no way I'd accept it as an inheirtance.

I am not a lawyer.

EDIT: It appears the word I'm looking for is "disclaim".
 
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You see time share on Craigslist in the FREE section from time to time.
Just make sure it gets transferred out if your name if you go that route.
 
I have one that I bought years ago in Dorado Puerto Rico. It is through Hyatt, and for the first few or so years used it and always had a good time. The maintenance fees unfortunately have more than doubled and my lack of a partner has prevented me from using it. The place was originally part of the hotel and was a bargain. Initial cost was sonething like 18,000, and will pay for itself if I used it. They also have a deal with Resort International, and discounts on using the Hyatt system so though its not a great deal, its probably not as bad as some of the others. Well at least I try to convince myself of that.
 
Everskyward said:
I went to one of these breakfasts at a Sheraton in Puerto Vallarta and to my shock, the person I was with who was my flying buddy actually bought a share. I think he and his family enjoy it. It would never occur to me to buy a timeshare. I'm not really into resorts nor would I want to be locked into a schedule.
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A good friend of mine from high school bought one, too. It surprised me to hear, and I questioned the intelligence. He rattled off all of the benefits they told him, and claimed that it included building equity or some such nonsense. I don't know if he's used it or not, but my suspicion is not.
 
Gerhardt said:
They are very persuasive sales people and a lot of people signed up.
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How can you be sure they were legitimate buyers and not shills working for the management company to create the illusion of sales occuring, and you better hurry or you will lose out? This is real estate after all. :hairraise:

(Said with the knowledge gained from 33 years of employment with institutional real estate investors. All of them with integrity but I've seen it all.... )

-Skip
 
Bill Jennings said:
A while back I inherited a 2 week fixed location timeshare that is too far away from us to be of any use. Thus, we want to be rid of the thing (ie, ditch the mx fees).

Looking on the internet there is conflicting info and lots of scams offering to rid folks of timeshares. Anyone here gotten rid of a timeshare?

I'd be perfectly happy to give the thing away, just want it gone.
Click to expand...

Donate it to a non profit and take the deduction....;)
 
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