|
| |
Giving up?
In the section on
resale prices, I discussed the (lack of)
wisdom in continuing to pay maintenance on a unit/week that you're not using
while you try to get an unreasonable sale price for it (and remember that it's
only "reasonable" if someone's willing to pay it). But what if you've found that
you "can't even give the thing away", as I've had people tell me in the past?
My first question to you is, what do you consider "giving it away"? Are you
trying to "give it away" for three grand? Or are you literally offering to just
sign it over to anyone who wants it? If your idea of "giving it away" is
"lowering the price to what I think is a ridiculous amount based on what I paid
for it" then I really would like to refer you back to the section on
resale prices. This section is not for you.
But if you LITERALLY (lit·er·al - adj. - Avoiding exaggeration, metaphor, or
embellishment; factual) cannot GIVE the unit/week away, then please read on.
As you may have read in other sections of this website, if you have a mortgage,
it is not held by the Association. The mortgage holder is one entity, the
Association is another entity, and never the twain shall interfere in one
another's business. So please note that if you have a mortgage, there is NOTHING
the Association can do about "getting you out of it". It's a contract, and we're
not one of the parties of the contract, so we can't help you with changing or
voiding that contract. So if you have a mortgage on the property, this section
is also not for you.
All that said, here's the point of this page. If you have not been able to sell
your property, and you do not have a mortgage on it, the Association will take
it back in lieu of maintenance. That is, if you can't get rid of it, and you
just don't want to have to pay any more money into it, you can give it back to
the Association instead of paying the maintenance (but did I mention this
doesn't apply to mortgages?).
Now since your first question is undoubtedly, "Why can't you BUY it from me?"
let me just say that the Association can't buy or sell unit/weeks. That's not
what we're here for, and the State gets very hyper about Associations buying and
selling unit/weeks. That's why we always have a successor Developer, so THEY can
sell unit/weeks. (Please note, I did not say "buy and sell" - our Developer does
not buy unit/weeks, nor do they currently broker resales. And I'm sorry, I don't
know why they don't or if they ever will - please see above regarding "separate
entities" and call them with questions regarding their policies.)
Your second question is probably "Why would you take back my unit/week if you
can't sell it?" This one is actually simpler than you might think at first... If
you as an owner decide not to pay your maintenance, then the other owners each
have to pay a little more to make up for what you don't pay. If you continue to
not pay year after year, the Association has a responsibility to put a stop to
it, to avoid making the other owners continue to pay your share. What we have to
do to "put a stop to it" is take the property away from you and give it to the
Developer to sell to someone who WILL pay the maintenance.
Now to follow up on that last, let me say that there are two ways the
Association can take a unit/week away from an owner - voluntarily or
involuntarily. We can either:
- Let the owner give the unit/week
back, which means it's done and over with quickly, and we can give it to the
Developer right away to sell to someone who wants it and will pay the
maintenance, or
- Wait until the account is delinquent
and file a lien, hire an attorney to file a lawsuit against the delinquent
owner to foreclose the lien, spend several hundred dollars on attorney's
fees (not to mention several months in a lawsuit), and when it's all over we
have the property back and a money judgment against the delinquent owner for
the back maintenance as well as the attorney's fees. This messes up the
delinquent owner's credit, of course, and the public records will forever
show a foreclosure action. And while the money judgment is theoretically
supposed to mean we get our money back for the maintenance and all the fees,
the sad truth is, we're probably out all that money... and for those owners
who have to pay to make up the difference, a permanent "black mark" on the
credit history of the person we foreclosed on isn't much of a consolation.
So given the option between taking the
unit/week back in a friendly manner that benefits both the Association and the
delinquent owner, or having to spend all that time and money foreclosing on
it... it doesn't make sense for us not to at least offer the option of giving it
back.
Now please don't read this page and think I'm saying that anyone who doesn't
want their unit/week anymore should just give it back to the Association. For
one thing, I'd love to talk to most of the people who say they don't like their
timeshares, and see if I can't educate them about how
to USE timeshare, and make them happy owners instead of unhappy owners. For
another thing, I'm not black-hearted... I would rather see an unhappy owner at
least get a few bucks out of his unit/week than to become even more bitter by
having given up the unit/week for nothing, and grouse about it to all his
friends, and make them think timeshare is anathema, too. But on the other hand,
I would rather see someone just give up the unit/week and be done with it, than
to keep scrimping to pay for it, never using it, and becoming more and more
bitter about the whole situation.
So if you haven't been able to "get rid of" your Canada House unit/week, and you
don't want to pay another year's maintenance on it, please contact us, and we
WILL "take it off your hands."
PLEASE NOTE:
If your account goes into collections (this means being sent to a collection
agency OR being sent to our Attorney for foreclosure), you WILL NOT be allowed
to give your unit/week back without penalty. You WILL be required to pay all
Maintenance, Taxes, Late Fees, Interest, and Collection Costs and/or Attorney's
fees prior to relinquishing the unit/week. In other words, if your account is
past-due and you are thinking of giving the unit/week back, it is IMPERATIVE
that you contact us AND complete the necessary paperwork BEFORE your account
goes into collections!!
If you have another question that wasn't answered here, or if you would like to
give up your unit/week, please, feel free to
contact us...
|
