Selling Your Hyatt Residence Club Timeshare

Determining What You Own

The first step in preparing to sell your timeshare is to get all your paperwork in order, to know all the details of your Hyatt timeshare ownership. Gather your bill of sale, warranty deed, your last tax bill, your last maintenance fee bill, and a copy of your recent assessments.

These documents should provide you with virtually all of the information you'll need, such as: what you own (home resort, annual points allotment), maintenance fees, and taxes.

Program Summary - What You're Selling:

If you're putting your Hyatt Residence Club unit up for sale, you are selling a timeshare that is a deeded fixed week, with the option to convert to points annually for internal trading within Hyatt. A handful of Hyatt resorts have deeds with a "Ground Lease," or expiration date. The resorts with Ground Leases are as follows (with their expiration dates):

• Windward Pointe (December 31, 2100)
• High Sierra Lodge (December 31, 2075)
• Hacienda Del Mar (December 31, 2070)
• Highlands Inn (December 31, 2079)

As a seller, you need to understand the system you are selling, to be able to explain it to your buyer, if asked. If you need to brush up on the program, see our article Buying Hyatt Residence Club

You will also need to determine what outstanding reservations you have that might affect what weeks your buyer will have available to them. Questions to ask yourself about the current year as well as the upcoming year are:

• Do you have any existing reservations?
• Have you used your vacation time?
• Have you converted your week to points?
• Have you rented your time for either year
• Have you deposited your week with an exchange company?

You can't sell your timeshare if you can't tell a potential buyer what is or is not available to them, so make sure you have solid answers to each of these questions. You can call Hyatt to confirm.

Restrictions on Your Ability to Sell

If your fees have all been paid, and you are in good standing with the resort, you can advertise your timeshare for sale.

Hyatt has the "Right of First Refusal" (ROFR) on all of their properties. This means, once a contract has been executed by a buyer and seller, it has to be sent to Hyatt for their decision to waive or exercise and step in as the buyer. Hyatt takes up to 30 days to make this decision from the time the Hyatt agent starts working on the request.

Outstanding Reservations - What Happens When You Sell?

If you, the seller, wish to retain usage of a specific use year, you will need to bank your points with II and then make an actual reservation through II before the transfer occurs. If the points are in the Hyatt system at the time of the sale, they will automatically transfer to the buyer.

If there is a Hyatt "Club" reservation already in place, the reservation will transfer to the buyer BUT the seller can call Hyatt and pay the reservation fee to have the reservation put back into your name for that year. Make sure your buyer understands what year their usage begins.

Any specific instructions on reservations must be on the resale affadavit for Hyatt.

Resale Restrictions to Disclose to Your Buyer

When someone buys your Hyatt timeshare on the resale market, they can use their week as you have, with one exception: they are not permitted to change their week into points in the Gold Passport program for Hyatt hotel stays, dining, and other services. Make sure your buyer understands this program will not be available to them.

How to Price Your Timeshare

You can test your timeshare's worth on many Web sites, including RedWeek.com, which offers the largest online marketplace for resales. Price will always depend on size of unit, view, location, season and usage (annual or EOY). For Hyatt owners, the deeded resort and week/season, along with accompanying points values are the most important factors. Keep in mind, a quick check of prices on RedWeek.com will show what prices other owners are listing their timeshares for — but not necessarily what they sold them for. RedWeek's What's My Timeshare Worth tool will plot historical listing prices for each resort, along with actual sales prices, as available.

Closing Costs, Commissions, and Fees

Closing costs will vary by state and price, as well as services and coverage provided. Costs included in a real estate transaction such as selling timeshare include (but not limited to): commissions, transfer fees, activation fees, estoppel and documentation fees, title transfer fees, title insurance (if applicable), stamp and tax fees, etc. Note: not all the fees listed apply to all timeshare resale transactions.

The closing costs for a Hyatt property are similar to standard real estate transactions. The closing costs include Hyatt transfer fees - currently $500. A typical transaction will have overall closing costs in the range of $500 - $1,000.

Considerations for Doing it Yourself

Doing it yourself, as with the sale of a home, is cheaper, but more complicated. You can easily advertise your timeshare on your own, but once you find a buyer, the real fun begins.

You will need to prepare a sales agreement detailing the terms and conditions that have been agreed upon by the buyer and seller detailing who is responsible for closing fees, find a closing company to set up escrow for the transfer of the funds, handle the right-of-first-refusal paperwork, and submit a request for estoppel from Hyatt.

If you choose to do it yourself, RedWeek.com is the largest online marketplace for timeshare, with over 3 million registered users. Memberships start at $18.99 annually, and you can advertise your resale for $59.99 for up to 12 months. You can advertise your points directly on the Hyatt Vacation Club Points page (make sure to note your home resort and deeded week details), or add a resale posting directly to your Hyatt home resort's page (making sure to note the season and points allotment).

Types of Professional Assistance Available

If you don't want to 'go it alone', then you should hire a licensed real estate broker/agent who specializes in timeshare resales. A licensed broker will conduct a background check on recent sales to determine what comparable timeshares have sold for during the past six months, set up your listing, handle the right-of-first refusal paperwork, perform the estoppel with Hyatt, and arrange the best closing services.

Commissions vary by broker/agent, which need to be disclosed and agreed-upon up front. Typically, minimum commissions are $1,000 to $1,500. Keep in mind this does not include the other closing fees described above.

Here are some options for finding a broker to manage this process for you:

• RedWeek.com offers a full service resales program to its members. For $125 (versus the $59.99 regular posting), RedWeek builds your resale posting for you, validates your week through the estoppel process, and assigns a licensed real estate broker to assist in your pricing and contract negotiations. When your week sells, the broker charges a commission of $899 or 3% of price, whichever is higher, in addition to closing costs.
• The LTRBA (Licensed Timeshare Resale Brokers Association) can also help you with identifying brokers that can aid in your resale process.
• Hyatt does not have their own resale program