Buying from international seller

[Hoppy-tn]

Now that Disney has bought our second attempt of purchasing resale we are going to try and purchase a contract from an international seller.
has anyone had issues that purchase an international contract, and does the capital gain tax thing cause any problems? Any advice you would give to someone or any thoughts to think about going this route?
also going to purchase a 150pt contract direct for riviera for the blue card perks and the bonus 21 points and probably just transfer the points to the resale contract most of the time.
has anyone done this and have any advice or thoughts

 

[CaptainAmerica]

also going to purchase a 150pt contract direct for riviera for the blue card perks and the bonus 21 points and probably just transfer the points to the resale contract most of the time.

If you're going to buy direct just to use them as sleep around points, why not buy somewhere cheaper like Old Key West?

 

[larry47591]

If you're going to buy direct just to use them as sleep around points, why not buy somewhere cheaper like Old Key West?

Or Saratoga get those cheaper dues

 

[Hoppy-tn]

The resale resort will be boardwalk so wanting to get riviera so that when boardwalk expires we still have easy access to 2 parks and incase we actually like riviera (never stayed there) we got in for home resort. From what I see and hear riviera can be hard to get at 7 months and once they get most the direct points sold for it I am guessing it will be a challenge at 7 months so jusssttt incase we like riviera we got that covered.
might go ahead and get 200 for riviera so only 11pt difference than old key or Saratoga that way.

 

[larry47591]

The resale resort will be boardwalk so wanting to get riviera so that when boardwalk expires we still have easy access to 2 parks and incase we actually like riviera (never stayed there) we got in for home resort. From what I see and hear riviera can be hard to get at 7 months and once they get most the direct points sold for it I am guessing it will be a challenge at 7 months so jusssttt incase we like riviera we got that covered.
might go ahead and get 200 for riviera so only 11pt difference than old key or Saratoga that way.

We do not own at Rivera but we have stayed there. It is very nice. We almost bought more points their while staying on site. But decided with the resale restrictions it just didn’t make sense. I think you would be happy owning there if you are not worried about reselling it down the road

 

[sndral]

I bought from an international seller (UK) several years ago & other than it taking a little longer I had no problems. Indeed, my international resale was much quicker than my divorcing domestic sellers resale. Sellers have to get their documents notarized & in some countries that has been a challenge, I’m not sure if things have improved recently w/ the availability of online notary services. The title company should handle FIRPA, so as long as you have one of the big title co.s it should be fine.
BTW, if you title your contracts exactly the same & have the same use year you’ll have 1 membership & you won’t have to mess w/ transferring points from one membership into the other. You’ll be able to use your BWV points for booking BWVs at 11 months & your Riv points for booking BWVs at 7 months whether all your points are in the same membership or you’ve transferred from one membership to another.

 

[Straulin]

Riviera worries me as a home resort unless you absolutely love it and want to stay there most of the time. The resale restrictions will do two things.

1. Reduce the value of your points if you ever decide to sale.

2. Result in all resale buyers having to exclusively stay at Riviera. This will cause a ton of folks to be competing at 11 months for rooms as they can't go anywhere else. So booking at 11 months will become way harder over time.

So as an aside if you did consider buying elsewere, 7 month folks won't have a shot at staying there in a few years. This would be a point in favor for buying there direct if you really want to stay and a point for never buying there resale.

 

[Sandisw]

Riviera worries me as a home resort unless you absolutely love it and want to stay there most of the time. The resale restrictions will do two things.

1. Reduce the value of your points if you ever decide to sale.

2. Result in all resale buyers having to exclusively stay at Riviera. This will cause a ton of folks to be competing at 11 months for rooms as they can't go anywhere else. So booking at 11 months will become way harder over time.

So as an aside if you did consider buying elsewere, 7 month folks won't have a shot at staying there in a few years. This would be a point in favor for buying there direct if you really want to stay and a point for never buying there resale.

I really don’t think we will see the impact at 11 months any worse than it is now. Studios, especially tower and SV, are already difficult many times throughout the year.

There are plenty of resorts that have room categories that go at 11 months.

As I have stated before, i have read that the amount of a resort that is resale vs. original owners is not that large and it takes a long time to get there so I think any availability issues there will be based on owners wanting to get those SV vs PV rooms.

 

[Royal Consort]

So booking at 11 months will become way harder over time.

This is happening now... at CCV.

Riviera gets hit with assumptions about this whilst other resorts which already have this central problem get a free pass. Confounding. There's no guarantee you'll get anything being shut out at 8am on the dot from CCV even as an owner (and people are). Especially during fall. Riviera has a balanced mix of rooms, however. That is the central reason I bought RVA over CCV.

 

[DaveNan]

Time will tell, but I fear RIV will get worse at 11 months over time. Will it get worse than CCV at 11 months, I don't know. CCV will always have the disadvantage of the cabins taking up a lot of points and potentially booking slower than the rest of the resort, which puts availability pressure on the other rooms. RIV has 2 things should make worse in the long run than it is right now. First, it is not sold out. This means they have released more rooms (dedicated to member reservations) than they have currently sold in points. We won't get a true picture of what availability looks like until the resort is sold out. Second, today there is a relatively small number of resale buyers, whom are forced to only stay at RIV due to the restrictions. Over time, as there is more restricted resale owners, they may be forced into becoming 11 month planners. Not everyone can be an 11 month planner, so I don't know "bad" it will get. A little worse than it is today? A lot worse? The key difference is, for a frustrated CCV owner that doesn't get a studio at 11 months, they can wait till 7 months and stay possibly elsewhere. For a resale RIV owner, the points are either wasted, need to stay in a 1BR for half the number of night, which might motivate them to being 11 month planners. For direct RIV owners, there is no difference.

 

[Straulin]

This is happening now... at CCV.

Riviera gets hit with assumptions about this whilst other resorts which already have this central problem get a free pass. Confounding. There's no guarantee you'll get anything being shut out at 8am on the dot from CCV even as an owner (and people are). Especially during fall. Riviera has a balanced mix of rooms, however. That is the central reason I bought RVA over CCV.

This is happening now... at CCV.

Riviera gets hit with assumptions about this whilst other resorts which already have this central problem get a free pass. Confounding. There's no guarantee you'll get anything being shut out at 8am on the dot from CCV even as an owner (and people are). Especially during fall. Riviera has a balanced mix of rooms, however. That is the central reason I bought RVA over CCV.

I didn't look into CCV very closely when we were analyzing where to buy. Riviera I did look at pretty closely. We finally came down to the primary requirement of home resort being walkable to either Epcot or MK. So that eliminated most of the resorts for us.

What is causing the issue with CCV? Too many high point cost rooms?

 

[heynowirv]

We have bought twice from Canadian owners. The first one was delayed because they had a reservation and it went very smoothly. The second time I don't know what the deal was but waiting on the sellers to get their paperwork in was like watching a faucet drip,,, drip,,, drip,,, My point is it's no different than buying domestic.

 

[RoseGold]

It can take longer, even with a cooperative seller because of all the paperwork. There are some horror stories about the title company messing things up with the IRS. I couldn't figure out how to even know if the title company messed it up, and I don't mess with the IRS, so I skipped an international contract. I would make sure you pick a good title company and make sure you talk to the title agent about these issues, if you are going to do this.

 

[Sandisw]

I didn't look into CCV very closely when we were analyzing where to buy. Riviera I did look at pretty closely. We finally came down to the primary requirement of home resort being walkable to either Epcot or MK. So that eliminated most of the resorts for us.

What is causing the issue with CCV? Too many high point cost rooms?

The cabins added a lot of points to the resort and those are not in demand to the same level that other rooms are, especially studios.

So, it comes down to the fact that there are 11 month availability problems at other resorts for certain rooms. While RIV is unique right now in that there will be resale owners who can only use points there, there are plenty of owners who self impose using points at their home resort and don't trade out.

Some of us just don't believe that the issue of restricted resale points will have a dramatic impact on the booking of other owners.

Those that own resale points will need to make sure to book during home resort booking, and many times of the year at 11 months to have a chance of SV rooms and the room sizes they want.

VGF has just added 202 resort studios but no new added any new 1 or 2 bedrooms. It is very possibly this will create more competition for those larger rooms. So, there are plenty of other reasons for availability to be difficult and resale restrictions is just one of many.

 

[heynowirv]

It can take longer, even with a cooperative seller because of all the paperwork. There are some horror stories about the title company messing things up with the IRS. I couldn't figure out how to even know if the title company messed it up, and I don't mess with the IRS, so I skipped an international contract. I would make sure you pick a good title company and make sure you talk to the title agent about these issues, if you are going to do this.

We did buy a contract from a CDN in 2020 and last week we heard from the IRS about the taxes. I contacted the Broker and was told it was taken care of. Haven't heard back from the IRS since.

 

[MonkeyKnifeFight]

We did buy a contract from a CDN in 2020 and last week we heard from the IRS about the taxes. I contacted the Broker and was told it was taken care of. Haven't heard back from the IRS since.

You just heard about the taxes 4 years later? We got a statement in November of 2020 after our March 2020 close. And dvc resale market took care of it quickly.

 

[heynowirv]

You just heard about the taxes 4 years later? We got a statement in November of 2020 after our March 2020 close. And dvc resale market took care of it quickly.

Actually s they explained to me it was payed for at closing and the IRS had to be made aware of it. They were CDN's who sold it to us so they payed the tax.