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Giving up your timeshare after it has been paid in full (by KC):

bertm14 wrote:

I've read some threads about foreclosure and credit problems associated with not paying off your timeshare/s. In my situation, I have paid off the time share years ago but do to health problems the last 3 years I've been lacking in the abiltity to keep up with all my bills. The time share now is 3 years behind with some interest in penalties of 850.00 Not a great deal for most but for my situation I have to pay the bare neccessities first. So my question is if I call the office to give up my timeshare and opt not to pay the 850.00 in maintainance fees will it affect my credit? The timeshare is Coral Princess, Cozumel, Mexico. And although I rarely used it in the 13 years I've had it. When I did, it was well worth it. I tried to ask family members if they wanted to take it over, but I guess I'm not much of a salesman. :p

Again question is, will my credit be affected by not paying past maintainance fees and giving back the timeshare. I haven't really thought about this timeshare as a real estate loan since it was paid off. But now I have to consider it.

First of all, please clearly understand that whether or not you can just "give back" your timeshare to the resort is NOT actually YOUR decision to just make on your own. Only the resort HOA can actually decide whether or not to accept "'deedbacks" --- and most resorts do NOT accept deedbacks. The fact that your timeshare is Mexican complicates things a bit further, since it's likely not a deeded ownership in the first place, but more likely some form of contractual Right to Use (RTU) membership of pre-specified, finite duration.

If you are several years behind on maintenenace fees and you haven't already been contacted by collection agencies, that *MAY* suggest a lack of initiative or energy at the Mexican end. Foreclosure (which applies to deeded ownership) is an expensive undertaking for a resort, so they will pursue any and all other alternatives first. If it's not actual deeded ownership in the first place however, and Mexican to boot (and paid up), they MAY well be less energetic and just shrug it off.

In specific regard to your credit question, that will depend mostly upon the extent to which the resort is proactive in reporting account defaults. My GUESS would be that a Mexican facility would not even bother going to a credit reporting agency regarding a fully "paid up" RTU timeshare over back maintenance fees. After all, they can just endeavor sell another RTU membership to someone else. You won't really get a clear, definitive answer here in these forums unless your inquiry is read by someone who has "been ther, done that" at your exact same resort ---and recently. Otherwise, it's just a guess as to the resort practices and policies on defaults. It may be worth a phone conversation directly with the facility manahgement for you to find out directly...