Step into my parlor said the spider to the fly! The lure of fabulous prizes and free vacations draw thousands of unsuspecting families into The Timeshare & Camping Web. "It all sounded so good," said one owner. "We could use it, trade it for other places, rent it (ha?), sell it, or leave it to our children… Once it was paid off, we would be locking in our vacation costs forever. Boy, were we ever wrong. We can’t even give it away. " This same song is being sung all over North America right now. Those free gifts have milked billions of dollars – from millions of people. Timeshare and campground resort developers, are still using the same tactics to create impulse purchases of their outdated products.

"Timeshare units are like good looking jails. Pretty on the outside, but hard to get out once you are on the inside," says one Lorelei owner. One very hard to face fact is that many owners were not told of the extraordinary costs of marketing their timeshare. It is common for a developer to spend several thousand dollars, or 60% of a timeshare week, just to sell their units. This is why so many developers have hundreds of unsold weeks and many such as Sunterra, end up in bankruptcy.

"Timesharing Today" a consumer publication for timeshare owners, reports many resorts are giving away their weeks just to pay the maintenance fees. How can resort owners who want to sell, compete with their owner associations? The RPOA (Resort Property Owner’s Association) reports that 60 – 70% of timeshare owners want to sell and this number is climbing each day. Less than 1% of timeshare units ever resell. One owner reports, "We paid one company $495 to sell our week, and another company $595 for an appraisal. We have not heard a word from either company. After trying to contact these companies, we found that both had gone out of business. As a last resort, we placed our week on EBAY, and did not get a bid, even when we lowered our price to $50. We tried donating our unit to charity. We thought a charity would like to own a vacation property in which we had invested over $8,500 plus interest, and then we could get a tax write-off. We could not even find a charity that would accept our donation. (It looks like our children will have to deal with it!)"

"I'll give you my timeshare!"

"Timeshare is a bad investment, even if the week was given to you," reports Gail Baiman, one of the largest resale Brokers in the country. The average price most families paid for a week exceeds $8,000, and the owner uses their week less than 10 years. This makes the average cost per year over $800 (not including the 15.9% interest most buyers paid on their loan).

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In addition, timeshare weeks have yearly maintenance fees, club dues, and property taxes. Some resorts bill these items separately, others resorts wrap them together. The costs range from $350 to $800, with the national average now over $500. In order to utilize the program which enables you to trade to other locations, you must pay a $125 - $150 annual membership fee to one of these exchange clubs, plus an exchange fee of $125 (if you can get an exchange!) Thus, owners have spent $750 plus their initial investment of $800, equaling an average annual vacation cost of $1,550.

The liability of owning a timeshare week is tremendous! The maintenance fees are a legal and binding obligation, which may become a part of the owner’s estate. These liabilities were spelled out in the Public Offering Statement, which was provided to the buyer upon purchase. However, most owners did not read the fine print. These documents give the right to the resort, to charge special assessments for repairs or extra operating expenses, in addition to the annual maintenance fees. Maintenance fees and special assessments must be paid – even if the owner does not use their week! Resorts may obtain a judgment resulting in seizure and levy of assets, liens against all real and personal property and garnishment of wages and bank accounts.

One example is R–Ranch, in Dahlonega, Georgia, which was damaged by a tornado. Even thought the resort was heavily insured, the Board of Directors decided to specially assess each owner. The special assessment was $700 in addition to their annual maintenance fee of $550. Owners that refused to pay their $1,250 were collected upon, to the degree a collection’s representative made a trip to prison to collect on one unfortunate owner! Tropical Breeze Resort Assessed each owner $5,000 for each week they owned.

Think before you purchase – INVESTIGATE, before you sign on the dotted line – and by all means, read the documents so you understand the liability you and your heirs are assuming. Everyone needs a vacation or just to get away, but Timeshare is an obsolete product! …It is no wonder people are jumping off the Timeshare ship!!

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