DVC T &C Personal Use - Only Thread to Discuss.

[mkatsy]

Meaning, no guarantee that one will be able to find a renter.....because they are competing with Disney....but FL 718 for condos give owners the right to rent, the contract gives us the right to rent....DVC just gets to decide how much renting one does shifts one into the commerical enterprise arena.

Now, the RIV and beyond POS documents are a little more direct and include examples of what DVC can use, which puts those owners on notice for things that the pre RIV POS does not...

Not that I expect DVC to come up with different thresholds and enforcments for pre and post RIV...but they definitely have taken steps, especially with the trust document and CFW, to tighten the rules and restrictions when it comes to limiting renting....plus, for CFW, because its not a leashold condo, IIRC, it doesn't even fall under FL 718...

Aulani, Hilton head, and the California properties can be exempted from 718 because it only protects property within the state. It’s an option, but the final decision is up to the state of Florida.

 

[Mouseforward]

on

The contract gives you the ability to rent but removes the expectation to rent. That means they can take they can take that ability away at the Management's discretion without a vote and they explicitly later state as much in POS when it comes to reservations.

Remember the POS is different for each resort , RIV has many changes where BW does not have some of the clauses you mentiond

 

[Sandisw]

on

The contract gives you the ability to rent but removes the expectation to rent. That means they can take they can take that ability away at the Management's discretion without a vote and they explicitly later state as much in POS when it comes to reservations.

They can't because as I said, the areas of the contract that include those rights are NOT removable by DVD....its would be considered a material change to the contract and the elements of the Declaration (and the Condo Rules and Regulations I posed above) can't be changed without a vote of owners.

You have to read the Declaration part of the contract which explains that that document can not be materially changed without a vote. But, based on the boards statements last year, they acknowledged that owners have the right to rent and I am extremely confident that the board does not intend to define the commerical purpose clause as "all renting".....

ETA: the Voting Rights section also gives insight on what they can’t change without owners input.

 

[Sandisw]

Aulani, Hilton head, and the California properties can be exempted from 718 because it only protects property within the state. It’s an option, but the final decision is up to the state of Florida.

You are right...when we are discussing this, I am always focused on WDW.

 

[Brianstl]

Timeshare contracts and laws are gamed to almost always benefit management and to allow them to change almost everything people think they have an ability to do. Disney has previously decided not to use many of the things available to them, but made sure those contracts gave them that ability if they decided they wanted to use them later on.

 

[Brianstl]

They can't because as I said, the areas of the contract that include those rights are NOT removable by DVD....its considered a material change to the contract and the elements of the Declaration (and the Condo Rules and Regulations I posed above) can't be changed without a vote of owners.

You have to read the Declaration part of the contract which explains that that document can not be materially changed without a vote.

It would only be a material change if the expectation wasn’t explicitly excluded in the required disclosure. The required disclosure clearly states that the owner should have no expectation to be able to rent their points.

 

[Brianstl]

Remember the POS is different for each resort , RIV has many changes where BW does not have some of the clauses you mentiond

That could be the case.

 

[Sandisw]

It would only be a material change if the expectation wasn’t explicitly excluded in the required disclosure. The required disclosure clearly states that the owner should have no expectation to be able to rent their points.

We can agree to disagree because that statement is in relation to the context of that paragraph....as I said, I went over this last year in depth with DVC and that is not what that clause means. So, for now, I am sticking with the information they gave me (and yes, it was high enough up the chain that I was confident in their information).....

Great debate though...

 

[Sandisw]

I don’t want to do that, no. I agree it’ll be pretty annoying. But I think I’d accept it if it meant slowing or stopping commercial renters. We can agree to disagree that there would be a difference if all commercial renting, especially spec renting, is stopped. No way to know until it’s done. And maybe it’s not a crazy difference but I’d be happy to go back to what I heard it was like 10-15yrs ago where some rooms were hard but not impossible or walked all year round.

And of course, those who want to profit from renting will also try at 8am but they’ll be severely limited unless they also spend tons of money on Human Resources to call in and book rooms everyday and each call would take time and allow others to jump in in front of them. Right now they are practically limitless.

And to yours and Sandi’s point about how much it would cost to hire MS cast members, something they wanted to get rid of by implementing the online booking system…you’re right. I’m sure it’s something DVC would actively try to avoid doing because it would be expensive and a pain.

But their fix of an online system (amongst other less easily fixable things, ie point charts) is also an expensive pain for them now that they’re losing money to commercial renters who are choosing to not book cash hotel rooms or even buying DVC when you don’t need to, you can just rent!

How much do they gain by doing something like this? I have no idea but we can’t say that Disney isn’t leaving money on the table right now by not curbing the flourishing business that has become DVC rentals in the last few years. And I think they’re definitely noticing.

All this aside, I’m not saying they’ll do this, in fact, I’m sure they won’t. But it’s not the worst idea I’ve heard. It doesn’t really limit owners, it doesn’t go against HRR or the POS. It doesn’t take away renting but it does make it more difficult for those who have made a business out of this.

I think I’d be ok with a special season list, too. The only issue with a lottery is these commercial businesses likely have the ability to generate multiple spots in the random queue, and so still have a much better chance than the average owner. But it’s better than nothing.

At some point something has to give cause we can’t all be against commercial renting in principle but not willing to do something about it.

Whatever rules DVC makes to define the commercial purpose clause, and enforce it is only supposed to be based on owners violating the contract....they are not supposed to make decisions because the hotel division may be suffering with lower occupancy...especially since the hotel division has all the power to add incentives that will put those renters back to cash..

Having said that, I still believe that they can easily accomplish getting the big time players out of there (which is who they mentioned) by tweaking the 2008 policy and making it harder for LLC's to rent without having to support that the guests are indeed employees/members of the company....set the threshold and tell the corporation it looks suspcious and stop them from booking more until the prove to the boards satisfacation that they are all indeed guests that qualify.

When you I look at some of the hard to get rooms being offered as confirmed, there are so many of them that are just one or two nights....and that would be a lot of reservations and name changes.....so, setting those limits for all memberships associated with an owenr instead of one, including monitoring above average lead guest name changes, it should, IMO, prevent those large point owners from continuing to do what they have been doing.

That is what I am hoping we see....that they find a way to take care of the ones who are doing most of the stuff that they shouldn't be and then reevaluate the point charts and potentially demand for specific room types and see if they can come up with a way to even that out for those owners who are being impacted by it.

But, I have to add....the fact we have really seen no movement since December in terms of reports of enforcement and no operational changes....makes me wonder if there isn't some level of legal hurdles in their way..

 

[Sandisw]

Your making up a definition of Regular and/or frequent renting of your points to mean yearly- this was not defined by DVC. Regular and/or frequent renting of your points could mean 3 times a year or more than 20 times.

edit - I do agree that making a living is not a criteria , you can be a business and not make a profit

To add, we know that over the years, DVC has always had a reasonablly higher threshold for the commerical purposes clause and nothing they have actually stated contridicts they intend to make it unreasonably low.

 

[Sandisw]

Since we know that owners can have reservations for family and friends, anyor want to share ideas on what they feel would be a fair way for DVC to evaluate that when reviewing a membership?

Figure it might be nice to discuss a different aspect of enforcement.