Have you considered “purchasing” a timeshare? Or perhaps you have gone through the sales pitch and been pushed into taking the ownership plunge? Okay, but—what exactly does a person buy with those thousands of dollars (and the associated, ongoing, ever-increasing “maintenance fees”)?
The answer, in short, is: it depends.
Depends on what?
Well, first of all, on whether a purchaser signs a “deeded contract” or a “right-to-use contract.”
Deeded contracts generally divide the resort into week-long increments that are sold as “real property.” The ownership of these periods of time is known as “fractional ownership.” Under this sort of contract, the owner may do with their interest in the property whatever one can do with any property one owns: rent it, give it away. It can be left to heirs or sold directly to another buyer. But it’s important to note: these deeds are almost never for ownership of the land on which a timeshare unit sits, but rather to the space within the structure that sits upon it.
Right-to-use contracts, on the other hand, allows the purchaser to use the property as outlined in the contract, but the property rights will eventually revert to the property’s owner—after a set number of years. As these contracts are often sold as “club memberships,” the rights transferred in such a contract may disappear when the company that sells them ceases to exist, or even if the property itself is sold to a different owner (it depends on what’s in the contract).
What else does the type of ownership depend on? The sort of “time” and “location” one signs on for.
The latest “property interest” that has been contrived for timeshares is the “points program.” These “points” are usually conveyed in addition to a more standard deeded or right-to-use interest, and are billed as being flexible. These points, so they say, can be used at various locations, for various statuses of accommodations, yadda yadda yadda. So basically, all the hassle of timeshare ownership without the certainty of week/location.
Fixed-week ownership is the oldest of the forms of “ownership”: you “buy” a week during the year in a particular accommodation. You get to use it for that week every year—so long as you also pay your ever-increasing annual maintenance fee. (If you don’t do that your interest can be foreclosed and your wages potentially garnished.)
Floating-week ownership tells the purchaser that they “own” a week during a given season, but not which week—so they must compete with others who also own a week during that same season if they want a particular week in a particular year. Sounds relaxing, doesn’t it?
Flex-week (or rotating week) ownership is not actually flexible. Rather an owner “buys” a week, and that week moves either forward or backward each year. So he who occupies during “Week 1” one year, the following year will occupy during “Week 2,” and so on. Less competition—but also less choice. At least you might get to be in the timeshare on spring break sometime within fifty years or so—if the stars align.
All of this assumes you’ve been granted by your written contract what you were promised at the sales pitch—and this, it turns out, is rather unlikely.
At The People’s Advocate, we aren’t fans of timeshare developers. In fact, we consider them to be evil because of the ways in which they defraud and cajole people into signing contracts for “ownership” that isn’t really ownership, which consumers don’t need and possibly won’t be able to afford over time. If you’ve recently signed a timeshare contract you’re not feeling right about—regardless of what sort of property interest you have “purchased”—contact us for a free information session on what you can do about it.