At least you got an answer. What are you going to do now?
I don't think the deadbeat owner sees it in those terms. I'm guessing they are seeing it from a purely selfish perspective, it's the 'me me me entitlement' attitude that I seem to see more and more of. They took 1/2 the rental money which would have paid all of the January dues for the villas rented and spent it elsewhere. They should never have offered the points to rent if they were in dire financial straits. At a minimum they should have notified David's when they were unable to pay their dues and started getting warning notices from DVC so as to give the victims more time to make other arrangements. Instead they ignored the collection efforts probably hoping to steal from Peter to pay Paul. Sorry, if they were truly contrite or had a sudden financial crisis they would have notified David's when it arose which would have been well before cancellation.
Yes, that's the language in the 2 emails which irked me - it was no "accident" and it certainly was not DVC's fault - so David's shouldn't be throwing them under the bus. They need to own their issue - we rented from a shady character, we know this happens, it's covered in your contract and here's your refund - good luck - not, 'oh the poor owner spent all day trying to correct DVC's mistake.' The troubling part of this is if David's position is that it is a DVC screw up will they use this owner's points again because they think it was a DVC 'accident' and not the owner's fault for trying to juggle past due bills.
Booking rooms are subject to very strict statues generally referred to as innkeepers laws which prohibits hoteliers from simply refunding your money, which is why they must find comparable accommodation if they can't accommodate you (I recall being walked once in Honolulu and refused the first room offered as not comparable.) Disney cannot just refund your money for a booked room. Their options with cancelling other vacations would depend on the terms of the contract of course.
It is what it is. My opinion has long been that a well researched private owner is better because of the direct relationship and fact that the brokers offer no flexibility. Still, we've seen posts here from people who felt that a renter should get a refund in a non refundable contract just because they had a sad story.
Maybe, independent escrows have their own issues, I won't use them because the rent can make claims, even if not true, that get them a refund for many situations.
I personally think it is and have said so here on DIS. But unless DVD puts their legal team in that direction, it makes no difference.
You can't get blood out of a turnip. certainly if you're willing to spend a few thousand and someone has real worth, you might have a chance of getting something. About the most you can hope for is they own a home and you can get a lien that might make them want to pay to sell it or refi. This isn't playing like someone that has money and is an idiot or just mean, it's feeling like someone who's broke and about to lose what they own. IMO it's not worth the potential cost to go this route and the chance of getting money, even with a legal win, is about zero to 10¢ on the dollar.
Yes, it varies widely from state to state although the origins are in English common law, and comparable is one of those conveniently vague terms, my response was to clarify that if Disney couldn't accommodate a cash room reservation they couldn't just refund the money as they have a statutory duty to provide shelter, I didn't mean to imply that timeshares were governed by the same statutes.
I think we can safely rule out the owner being recently killed in a car crash since David's email to the first victim to report clearly said the owner spent all day trying to 'correct DVC's mistake,' which presumably means we have a still living owner.
Nope, I'm sticking with "deadbeat," "fraud," or even "thief." This member was paid for the rental at the same time maintenance fees were due. The member chose to use the money for something else. They booked a reservation that would not be honored unless they kept up their end of the deal, and they purposefully use the money for something else.
