New Renter

I am renting for the first time, and have had super interaction with the owner. We have reserved a spot, and now it comes time to pay. The options are paypal or check mailed to the owner. Do I need to be concerned about owner/renter scams?

thanks for your help!

raeleenb3 wrote:

I am renting for the first time, and have had super interaction with the owner. We have reserved a spot, and now it comes time to pay. The options are paypal or check mailed to the owner. Do I need to be concerned about owner/renter scams?

thanks for your help!

I certainly hope that you:

1... have first confirmed directly with the resort that this person is actually the OWNER of the week being rented. You don't want to get caught up in someone improperly renting a week they obtained by "exchange", a practice prohibited by both II and RCI and which could result in your being turned away if discovered (regardless of whether you already paid someone or not). Further, I hope that you also...

2...have a clear, written and signed rental agreement with the (confirmed) owner identifying unit description, rental terms, occupancy dates and times, all owner identification details and a clearly specified cancellation / refund policy.

The above details should be conclusively resolved BEFORE you should even THINK about sending anyone any money, or by what method you should later pay. Don't put "the cart before the horse"...

Later, once ALL of the other critically important details above have been taken care of, remember that PayPal provides instant payment to the recipient, but absolutely no meaningful protection to the sender for any "non-tangibles" transaction (...which a rental is). On the other hand, once you have completed the proper confirmations above, you may by then be comfortable that the owner is legitimate and therefore be sufficiently comfortable to then use PayPal.

Apparently, the Owner services at Vacation Village will NOT give you the owner's name to confirm they are owners. They told me I have to contact the owner and ask him to call the resort to confirm my stay when renting his unit.

If it is Vacation Village at Parkway and you know the owners name you can look up the deed at the Osceola County records page: http://198.140.240.30/or_web1/disclaim.asp Weeks are fixed and you would be able to see if they own the fixed week that they are renting.