TS Today - Creating a Vision for the Future of Vacation Ownership Issue #159 May/Jun 2018 | Page 13

TimeSharing Today Nobody looking in the public re- cords in the county where the timeshare is located will find that Chicago divorce decree. The ex-husband should have re- corded a deed to the ex-wife in the pub- lic records just like the ex-wife did to transfer ownership to her sister. Changes in ownership need to be recorded where the timeshare is located. Furthermore, transfers need to com- ply with the requirements of local law where the timeshare is located. Even if all the owners of a Florida timeshare live in Illinois, transfers are governed by Florida real-estate law because that’s where the real estate is located. Death: An added complexity Inheritance adds another level of complexity to the ownership picture. Say a New Yorker owns a Florida time- share. He has been coming on vacation with his only son for the last 20 years; the son wants to take over ownership of the week when dad passes on. When dad dies, the son becomes the personal representative of the estate Page 13 (called an executor when a will exists and an administrator when no will is present). The son has a power of attor- ney, everything you can imagine. The estate is probated in New York, and the son is the sole heir and gets ev- erything. Does he own the Florida time- share? No—not until actions take place in the county where the timeshare is located. Many states allow for a deed signed by the personal representative of the es- tate. Others, including Florida, do not. You need to find out what the laws are in the state where your timeshare is located. In the above example, the son would have to hire a Florida attorney and pay that attorney thousands of dollars to file a case and have a Florida judge review the estate before the son could inherit dad’s week. That’s not a good deal when the son could go on TUG2.net or E-Bay and buy a week at the same resort for $100. An unwanted timeshare If the timeshare was located in a state that allows for personal repre- May/Jun, 2018 sentative deeds, such as Colorado, the personal representative could deed the week to the son, deed it back to the re- sort (if the resort is willing to accept it), or gift or sell it to any third party. This can work if an heir wants the timeshare, but please don’t try leaving your timeshare to somebody who might not want it. You can write in your will that your senator gets your timeshare. Your sena- tor doesn’t have to accept it. Neither do your kids or your church. Some owners just pretend the timeshare doesn’t exist in their will. That doesn’t work either. It’s automatically part of the residue if it is not separately addressed. For heirs who don’t want a time- share, finding a third-party buyer is hard. The timeshare isn’t a gift to them; it’s a massive and expensive headache. Even if they can transfer owner- ship, they have to pay for advertising, deal with calls from scammers, pay transfer fees. If they can’t transfer own- ership, then add another $2,000 or so to their expenses. www.tstodayjoin.com: Start or renew memberships, place ads, order document kits and more