Walking Away From Timeshare Maintenance Fees

Real estate fees and travel costs are combined in timeshare ownership, putting some owners in such a financial bind that they wonder if they should keep paying for it. You may think of doing the same if your timeshare unintentionally becomes a burden.

If you are reading this, it’s likely because you are tired of having to pay a timeshare business maintenance fee each month. Maybe you used to love your timeshare, but now the excitement has worn off, or you don’t have the time or resources to spend much vacationing there. Whatever your motivation to stop paying ongoing maintenance costs for a timeshare contract that you no longer find valuable, be informed before taking action to relieve your timeshare burden. Unfortunately, if you cease paying for a timeshare, there are penalties.

What Are Maintenance Fees for Timeshares?

The timeshare owner pays These annual fees to the timeshare management firm annually (or maybe monthly) to pay for the regular expenditures of maintaining their timeshare property. Timeshares need regular maintenance to ensure everything is functioning properly; this has a price, which is passed on to you.

What Are Covered by Timeshare Maintenance Fees?

Regular maintenance and repairs to the property are covered by timeshare maintenance fees, including:

1. Landscaping: sweeping leaves, cutting hedges, mowing the lawn, and even maintaining sprinkler systems.
2. Maintenance of amenities: pool maintenance, gym equipment, and golf course upkeep.
3. Business expenses: property insurance, administration, scheduling, and record keeping

How Much Do Maintenance Fees for Timeshares Cost?

The typical yearly maintenance charge is $1000. However, the surprise comes when you learn that fees increase yearly, sometimes much more quickly than the inflation rate. Unfortunately, the amount of maintenance and assessment payments is beyond the timeshare owner’s control. A management company or board sets and oversees these charges, and there is almost no transparency. Although they primarily cover operations, budgeting issues, and renovations to the property, several “various expenses” often emerge. Vacation owners are legally required to pay the resort’s costs even if they disagree with the prices.

Perpetual contracts are a common component of timeshare transactions; in other words, you are committed to paying indefinitely. Even now, it’s practically hard to get out of a timeshare agreement since maintenance payments must be paid whether or not you utilize the property. They cannot be altered. To discover what is truly said about your maintenance expenses, carefully read your contract. The following consequences are generally involved with contract violations:

1. Reservations and Alternative Options Will Be Rejected.

The resort reserves the right to refuse your reservation requests if you depart from the contract terms. The resort will ensure you are aware of this; if you want to reserve your week, the desk where you checked in will reject the reservation since it violates the terms of the contract.

The timeshare will not only decline to handle your yearly vacation requests but also rental requests. Offering your week for rent may make you feel clever, but you’ll quickly discover it’s more complex. What happens if you have to issue a refund while arranging for the tourist to stay elsewhere? You could believe that an exchange will benefit you as well; depositing your week, however, could no longer be an option if your maintenance expenses are overdue. When you choose to break your agreement, your ability to handle anything related to the resort is limited.

2. Reservations and Alternative Options Will Be Rejected.

The resort will try to hold you responsible for the breach if you default on the timeshare by not paying the fees. They have every right to pursue you aggressively if you breach the contract; this may include transferring you to a third-party collection agency or using aggressive communication tactics by a staff.

The resort will exert all reasonable pressure on you to make a payment of any kind; they know just where to strike you to collect, much like how salespeople close or upgrade you. Timeshare owners often prefer maintenance payments over coping with the repercussions. But some people are so impatient they defy the resort to do anything.

3. Legal Action.

You must understand the resort will continue collection attempts in addition to slamming you with fines and late fees. If you walk away from a mortgage while continuing to make payments, compounding costs will apply to both. Unaffiliated third parties provide the majority of loans and are unrelated to resort responsibilities. If you’re not cautious, you can find yourself the target of harassment from two distinct parties.

Your delinquency will almost certainly be referred to a credit reporting agency once a certain period (often 30 to 90 days) has elapsed without success. A tarnished credit history might make it more difficult to borrow money for a lengthy period, even if this may not immediately alarm you. Up until the unfavorable reporting stops, getting a loan or another mortgage could be out of the idea. If the timeshare firm is thrifty, the company may keep renewing the outstanding amount for a very long period. The timeshare corporation often thinks you will ultimately pay up, just as most timeshare owners anticipate things would turn out in their favor. The company could start threatening you with a lawsuit if they think you are serious about not paying. Even if some lesser timeshare companies lack the resources or ability to take legal action against you, most of them do, and they will. Assuming that this is another fear tactic, it might quickly backfire.

A legal struggle might quickly cost you all you have and the time commitment. Remember that resorts have the power of a formal contract on their side. Additionally, they have the resources to bring the strongest legal case against you if they want to.

4. The Resort May Try to Foreclose.

The developer (or HOA board) can also pursue foreclosure on the property and accrue late fees, collections, and credit reports. The timeshare might increase the fee you owe them by including foreclosure expenses, just as in a court case. Financial harm might result from court charges, legal fees, filing fees, and other paperwork requirements.

If necessary, the foreclosure process might stretch on for years. A foreclosure could still be underway even if you believe you are in the safe zone and collection agencies cease contacting you. Some timeshare owners are caught off guard by the effects since they don’t learn about it for years. The future could be better for the timeshare owner once the courts get involved. A foreclosure may have a significant negative influence on your credit scores, particularly with overdue amounts that are sent to collections.

5. Other Resort Owners Will Pay the Cost.

The effect of timeshare developers’ choice on other resort owners may be difficult for most timeshare owners to accept. In addition to personal consequences, skipping timeshare maintenance costs forces other owners to shoulder the load. Although the resort may initially bear the expenditures, the remaining fractional owners will ultimately share in the loss. Even if it takes time, this is unavoidable; this often impacts guests on good terms with the resort. Resorts have no issue charging customers who promptly pay their bills. In other words, you’re causing owners who don’t have issues to experience the same difficulties that made you leave. The hotels will make sure you understand this.

They will also use guilt as coercion to get you to pay. They want to retain you as a client and your residual revenue, even if they have to do it by force. Someone will eventually cover maintenance costs, allowing the resort to earn the profits they had projected for the year.

The Tragic Truth of Timeshare Maintenance Costs

The developer will sometimes pay the maintenance payments while making the transaction. But after the first sales drive is done and the Homeowners Association (HOA) is left to manage the costs, these expenses may increase substantially and suddenly. We are not implying that a property doesn’t require routine upkeep. We understand. Nobody wants to reside in a house that calls itself “open air” but is simply a cave in the roof.

The increasing costs don’t simply go toward maintaining the property; they also make up a significant portion of the timeshare company’s revenue. The additional assessment fees, which are merely another ploy to extort money from you to pay for expenses like disasters (that your normal maintenance cost does not cover), are another tax that needs to be given the attention it deserves. They are worse since it seems you, the owner, is forced to pay them as a catch-all expense.

Summary

Get rid of your timeshare to avoid paying maintenance fees and other special assessment expenses completely. There is virtually no way to cancel the annual assault on your money account as long as you own the property. If your timeshare is devalued, ask the resort if they would accept the timeshares back. If that doesn’t work, your next best choice could be to deal with a timeshare exit company that supports an escrow payment method. These companies were created to assist timeshare owners like you to break free from their timeshare agreements by working with lawyers. If you want to learn more about any timeshare exit company, go through our list of reputable timeshare exit companies, call us at 619-354-2362, complete the contact form on the right side of the page, or start a live chat with us.