timeshare exit strategy

Hello all!

I did a search and did not see anything regarding this option. I'd love feedback from anyone who has gone this route!

I am currently an owner (no mortgage, paid up) in Week 15 at The Colonies at Williamsburg in Virginia, USA. I am no longer using this timeshare and it has become a total money-suck. I know that most exit strategies cost money and in the end you get out of the contract, but lose the money you paid AND the money you're charged to get out of the contract.

Enter this idea: my husband and I have been to the Karisma resorts in Riviera Maya, Mexico a few times and really love the area and the quality. I have read that you can purchase a number of weeks from them and they will take your current timeshare off your hands as part of your 'payment' for those weeks. I believe the weeks are floating and that you still have to pay their all-inclusive fees when you use them. This seems like a good option, especially if we can get something with a purchase price of, say, $5K or lower. It feels like a win because 1) we get out of our current timeshare, 2) I understand there are no maintenance fees with their resort weeks, 3) we would actually use the weeks and 4) after the weeks run out, we are no longer on the hook for a lifelong commitment (as I understand it).

Has anyone done this? Is there a catch? Please advise! Thanks!

Be very careful and read through all the threads about the resorts . They will promise you anything to get more money from you . They will lie about everything . Read the contract . Anything they tell you that is not in the contract is unenforceable .

julier355 wrote:

Hello all!

I did a search and did not see anything regarding this option. I'd love feedback from anyone who has gone this route!

I am currently an owner (no mortgage, paid up) in Week 15 at The Colonies at Williamsburg in Virginia, USA. I am no longer using this timeshare and it has become a total money-suck. I know that most exit strategies cost money and in the end you get out of the contract, but lose the money you paid AND the money you're charged to get out of the contract.

Enter this idea: my husband and I have been to the Karisma resorts in Riviera Maya, Mexico a few times and really love the area and the quality. I have read that you can purchase a number of weeks from them and they will take your current timeshare off your hands as part of your 'payment' for those weeks. I believe the weeks are floating and that you still have to pay their all-inclusive fees when you use them. This seems like a good option, especially if we can get something with a purchase price of, say, $5K or lower. It feels like a win because 1) we get out of our current timeshare, 2) I understand there are no maintenance fees with their resort weeks, 3) we would actually use the weeks and 4) after the weeks run out, we are no longer on the hook for a lifelong commitment (as I understand it).

Has anyone done this? Is there a catch? Please advise! Thanks!

If you do some Internet research on timeshare "trade-ins" in Mexico, you will easily find a whole multitude of unhappy people who fell for this "trade in" ruse.

Far more often than not, nothing at all ever gets done with the alleged "trade in". In fact, the customary and usual result is a surprise call (....weeks or months later) offering you the "opportunity" to just keep your (supposedly traded in) timeshare. In short, the "taking it off your hands" part to which you make reference usually never happens and people end up with their new "product" and their old one. Sound good? I didn't think so...

I would be willing to bet that there is no legally enforceable reference or guaranty anywhere within your Mexican RTU contract regarding lawful and guaranteed disposition of the "trade in" by deeding it to a new "grantee" (which is the only action that can or will legally make you a "former" owner --- after the recording of a valid new deed in Virginia).

If you are truly enamored of the Mexican RTU "opportunity", that is your business, but rest assured that the (alleged) "trade in" is not at all a good or guaranteed "exit strategy". You would be wise to instead just lawfully dispose of the existing unwanted VA timeshare yourself, one way or another, here in the U.S. --- or you will likely find yourself with two obligations, when all is said and done. If your existing timeshare is one that you cannot get rid of by sale, deedback or "giveaway", then what mystical powers do you think the sales weasels in Mexico somehow possess to magically get it transferred to a valid new grantee? (deed transfer which, by the way, would have to be recorded here in the U.S., where the timeshare is located). "Trade in" paperwork executed in Mexico is legally meaningless, worthless and irrelevant in the U.S. as pertains to a legally valid and permanent transfer of your deeded timeshare in Virginia.

Proceed with this seriously flawed plan forewarned. Better still, don't proceed with it at all.

P.S. The alleged "credit" given for your alleged "trade in" is just smoke and mirrors. They would be giving you nothing for it. The next people through the door could get the same price (or perhaps even a lower price) with no "trade in". The "trade in" lure is just a ruse to entice you to sign on the dotted line and give up those oh-so-welcome gringo dollars.

Forewarned is forearmed....