You may have fallen in love with a certain timeshare club, but there comes a time when you will look to quit, sell, or walk away from your timeshare, which begs the million dollar question “how can I sell my timeshare?”
This is a question I am always faced with and of course with these questions you also tend to hear various horror stories associated with timeshare sales. The stories you hear about fake or fraudulent reselling companies are very real, and thankfully well documented. However, it is often this very fact that turns people away from scalpers altogether. To one extent or another, this practice can be expressed as something out of the frying pan and into the fire, as you can often run into many problems that lurk in the private purchase or sale of timeshares.
It’s not unexpected to hear about friends or family members selling or turning over properties, which in theory isn’t a bad idea, but you should still remember some key facts about the legal nature of timeshare ownership. The worst thing I’ve heard about, and not too long ago, is that people turn to private sellers, looking to get what seems like an incredible, too-good-to-miss-out deal on places like eBay and Craigslist and end up in a situation very complicated.
The problems in this part of timeshare ownership aren’t high up-front fees or ghost buyers whose money never shows up, no, this is a little different. The main problem is when paperwork and/or costs have to change hands to close a deal.
A fellow I met years ago while traveling recently contacted me for advice after a very unpleasant purchase (or at least what he thought was a purchase) of a timeshare property in Gran Canaria. Getting a deal was easy, finding the right club for the money is one of the easiest parts now, with many ridiculous offers of 1 timeshare or thousands of points for next to nothing.
If you’ve ever had to deal with buying a timeshare, selling a timeshare, or for that matter, renting a timeshare, you probably know that this isn’t the whole story, not at all. Those Club La Costa points or that week that will cost you the full sum of what is in your back pocket will surely be combined with legal fees, administrative fees and more, usually to the resort to change the owner on paperwork. But you see, these fees, along with the cost of timeshares or timeshare points, seem too high in comparison.
Legal fees are part of buying or selling timeshares, just as they are in real estate; It’s supposed to. Most people who haven’t come across timeshares before will probably know that there are some fees, but the ones that really get upset are those who are clueless to begin with and then cheat or lie during the sale.
Fortunately, my friend was aware of the additional costs, but like most, was unaware of exactly how the process worked. “Easy,” said the salesman, he was experienced and would take care of the matter; all my friend had to do was turn in the paperwork and payment, easy. Do you see where he went wrong? There was no “middle man” or independent party to handle the process, it was all based on blind faith that the seller was honest throughout the entire process.
Now, being quite an optimistic person, I know you need to trust people from time to time, but at the end of the day you have to consider the cost. If you hadn’t already found out, the buyer walked away with a large sum of money that belonged to my friend, never to be seen again.
While the amount he paid was nothing like what you’d expect to buy directly from a club, and the costs asked for didn’t seem enough to cause much alarm (a few hundred dollars), the amount lost was still a hit, but ironically, it was the small amount that caused him to disregard his better judgment and payment.
So what can he do now? Well unfortunately not much, contacting TATOC or RDO is a good start; they can usually give you advice on what to do if you get caught like this. Even if it’s too late to do anything about it, it’s always worth letting them know about events like organizations like TATOC that issue lists of trusted sellers or, more importantly, known scammers, so you can help others in the future. Unfortunately my friend was caught and nothing could be done, the seller did not leave a working phone number and the address was no longer occupied so there was no way to find the seller.
The best thing to do is to use a reputable company with in-house transportation services. Without getting bogged down in the details, a good transfer department will make sure all the paperwork is exchanged correctly, everything is settled, and most importantly, they store all the money in an escrow account controlled by an independent lawyer. . Money stored in this way ensures that it doesn’t go anywhere until the conditions of the sale are met.
The low? Well, the only drawback, if you can call it that, is that it costs more money – how much can be exchanged depending on the reselling company and what service is required (around 300). But if you want to be happy knowing that your money is in safe hands and won’t be ripped off or stolen, that’s not really a big price to pay.
So it’s the usual advice, do your best to make sure the companies involved are reputable, check with industry bodies like TATOC, RDO and ARDA who can confirm this or help establish if you might be dealing with a disreputable business. While there are deals available, especially when buying timeshare points, be wary of deals that seem too good; You don’t have to avoid them, just make sure you do your research, ask the right questions, and if you can’t get a satisfactory answer, then maybe it’s time to look elsewhere.
