Bill
The way Disney would do it is to pro-rate the dues for 2016 from the date you get your first points. If you purchase an Aug UY and there are no points until Aug 2016, you would pay 5/12ths of the dues for 2016. (Disney calculates it down to the number of days so Disney would bill you for 153 days worth of dues, a fraction over 5 months' worth.) I would not be willing to pay full dues for 2016 in this situation unless I was getting the contract for a very good price to compensate.
This is correct.
Dues are pro-rated from the later of: your purchase date, the date you get your first set of points, or the occupancy date of the Unit you purchase (applies to new construction). So if you purchase on July 1, 2016 with a UY of, say, October and your first points are the October 2015 points, your dues are pro-rated from July 1 (your purchase date). If the purchase date and UY are the same but your first set of points will be Oct 2016 points, the dues are pro-rated from Oct 1, 2016 (when you get your first set of points.)
Assuming all points for the UY are intact and usable, the neutral position is you pay a prorated amount equal to the # of months left in the UY that calendar year. Assuming say Dec 16 with all 16 points and no 15 UY points, paying all of the dues would mean one is overpaying by 11/12 of the dues. Now none of the regular companies look at it this way and I have my theories as to why but in reality this is how it's done. The way to look at it is what would you pay if you bought direct in the same circumstances. Just realize this situation and account for the extra costs as part of your overall savings.
Said another way, the dues are paid by calendar year but you need to look at how that overlaps with the particular UY. For an Oct UY, the annual dues I pay for 2016 cover the last 9 months of my 2015 UY (Jan 1 - Sep 30, 2016) and the first 3 months of my 2016 UY (Oct 1 - Dec 31, 2016). So if I bought a contract from Disney today and didn't get points until Oct 1, 2016, they would charge me 92 days worth of dues for calendar year 2016 to cover Oct 1 - Dec 31, 2016.
What really matters is the total price you pay for the contract and dues reimbursement. If they are digging their heels in about the dues reimbursement, make an offer on the contract that is a bit lower than you had originally planned to account for the $3-$4/point of over-payment of the dues. Based on what you posted, it sounds like this contract is priced on the low end so perhaps when you factor in full dues reimbursement you would still be getting a good deal.
I got lucky. We just bought a resale with a Dec u/y with the 2015 points and they already paid the MFs. I have noticed that a lot of the december u/y MFs were paid on the listings.
With a December UY, the 2016 annual dues covers 11/12ths of the Dec 2015 UY points and 1/12 of the Dec 2016 UY points. If you bought a contract with all Dec 2015 points available and you are paying the 2016 dues but not the 2015 dues, then you got a month worth of dues for free (for the month of Dec 2015).
Points that are restricted (banked/borrowed) and point that have less time left in the UY all have less value. It's a double whammy for banked borrowed with the clock ticking on the UY and even worse if the banking deadline has passed for current UY points.
It's only complicated because the resale companies take the incorrect stance "you get the points you pay the dues" and to do it correctly is an uphill battle. How a given person wants to look at it or handle it is up to them. The neutral position is as I posted above and that is factual. It's important to know because it can easily be a $5-10 per point swing on the price of a given resale and it does affect the actual value of the resale as does the points availability in general. The easy way to look at it is what would you pay if you bought from Disney. This will give you the same answer as above unless one buys mid calendar year but gets the current UY points in which case Disney gives an added benefit of lower dues because they have less life left.
What's the benefit of the sellers paying additional annual dues, why not just offer X dollars less per point to make up for the dues?
It's not a question of benefit. Obviously the more a seller pays the cheaper for the buyer and vice versa. It's an uphill battle where the usual resale companies are concerned but it's helpful to know what you are and are not getting. Most resale buyers overpay where dues are concerned, you just have to take that into account in the overall process just like you did with closing when Disney didn't charge closing. My point was for the buyer to understand the neutral position, basically what the actual dues are and should be on the points they're getting and to be aware that the "you get the points you pay the dues" position almost always means one is overpaying by as much as almost a years worth of dues in some cases. That can be substantial. Resale should still be a savings for most situations so it's more useful in comparing resales but can also be helpful in considering the real costs and real savings one is getting compared to retail, esp for higher end options.
