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

[Cyberc1978]

they could shift he points to another contract

That's only partially true.

if you have multiple contracts for the same resorts with the same UY, then you MIGHT be able to shift the points.

If you are transferring points, you only have 1 shot each UY.

 

[Sykes]

For me, volume is the big predictor of being a commercial renter. Which room is really irrelevant as far as I am concerned.

Where you on AKV or SSR, if you are renting 100s of reservations a year, it’s not personal use and DVc should be doing something.

If you are renting one reservation a year, because you can’t use alll your points but it’s less than the contract size you own, and it happens to be a high demand, I don’t think it means you have become a commercial renter for the purposes of our contract.

I think that this conflates two separate but related concepts: 1) What constitutes a prohibited rental, and 2) How Disney can identify people engaged in prohibited rental activity.

A single non-personal-use rental is prohibited, even if you ever only do it once over the lifetime of your ownership. We can go back and forth for days over what constitutes personal use for the purposes of the various terms and conditions (and Disney has given us some new hints about how they intend to interpret those provisions), but the second that line is crossed, then Disney is entitled to cancel that reservation.

Having said that, given that Disney can't peer inside our heads to accurately discern our intent for every rental, I suspect that you are right as a practical matter--that they will use frequency and regularity as the primary metrics for trying to identify owners engaged in prohibited rental activity, and that they will start by going after the biggest offenders where there is little doubt that the activity is commercial in nature.

Personally, I'd argue that anyone who is renting a portion of their points to strangers every (or every other) use year is no longer using those points for personal use. It may not rise to the level of a commercial enterprise, but I wouldn't consider it personal use as required by the terms. But, early on at least, I also don't think that Disney will bother going after many of the small fish because it'll be much harder to discern intent, and the benefits of canceling those reservations are much smaller. They may feel compelled to do so at a later date if they're not seeing the desired impacts though.

 

[Cyberc1978]

As I shared, I bought when less than 20 reservations in a rolling 12 month period would not trigger DVC contacting you and questioning your intent.


.

Do you know when DVC removed the reference to the 20 reservations per 12 months rolling?

 

[Brian Noble]

Why is it Marriott and Wyndham have so strict rules about renting, when the 2021 FL statutes gives owners the right to rent etc?

Wyndham allows rentals generally, but forbids commercial use. Their actions to implement this policy have not been found to be incompatible with the relevant FL statute.

Edited to add: at least some of the Wyndham resorts in Florida are (at least partially) deeded property and not indirectly owned through the Club Wyndham trust, so that is not a distinction. I happen to own a deeded week that has been converted to points at one of them.

As far as I know, Marriott takes the same position, but I do not own with them so know less about it.

 

[Mouseforward]

Personally, I'd argue that anyone who is renting a portion of their points to strangers every (or every other) use year is no longer using those points for personal use

This is exactly why this change is so troubling. It appears to go way beyond commercial versus non-commercial renting which is what was in the contract when we purchased.

I’m not convinced that this language is just looking at the big guys. I think it’s heading towards. a fundamental restriction on use of what we purchased.

 

[matt_in_nh]

that's why I don't think this current uptick has anything to do with the new wording that just came out.

No we don't know for sure - you could be right but could also be that this had been planned long ago and now the contract which are being sold have no upcoming reservations on them.

17 stripped contracts showing up on day from one broker is pretty good circumstantial evidence. We will see if the trend continues and if the market floods with with contracts, right now there is not an abnormal number for sale.....curious to see if that creeps up.

 

[Brian Noble]

17 stripped contracts showing up on day from one broker is pretty good circumstantial evidence.

I am not sure this volume is so unusual. The major players have been strip-mining contracts for a while now. In other words, this just looks like garden-variety large-scale renting, not a rush for the exits.

 

[matt_in_nh]

No to my knowledge - last year we hard about reservations being cancelled, but we don't know why. could have been unpaid dues, foreclosure basically any number of reasons including commercial renting.



Lets not get carried away.

we all know that to sell a contract it can't have any upcoming reservations on it. If a commercial renter wanted to sell he would either need to cancel all reservations or not have made any bookings for a while on those contracts.

I'm just not seeing any of those options as the right ones right now. Could be commercial renters selling, but maybe they had it planned for quite a while.

or move bookings from some contracts and transferring to others and clear the decks on some of their contracts to put on the market?

 

[Mai Ku Tiki]

Day 3 & I've finally reached pg 56...Possibly rivaling the Great Murphy Bed Discussion!

Thanks to all who participated & helped inform us.
And to Sandi for helping to keep it all on track...

 

[AstroBlasters]

There are other ways. They aren't necessarily likely, but they are possible.

I retract and amend to: “would probably mean”

 

[Brian Noble]

It would certainly damage one potential price-floor support.

 

[davidhr]

I'm in this camp, but not for the reason you suggest.

When I made my decision to buy, I did so under the assumption that my resale value would be zero, and I consider any salvage value to be found money. So, I am not disturbed by the idea that my contract might be worth $0 when I want to dispose of it, but it is also true that if it is better-than-$0, I'd welcome it.

The practical. impact of this is that I don't particularly care if Disney takes steps to devalue the resale market. That's partly because I've been watching them do exactly that for almost 15 years now, so I assumed they'd keep at it.

I do the same. I always consider $0 for my contracts. My comment was more about the idea of people being ok with things “hurting” their value. More on the funny side of it than attacking anyone.

And as clarification, I mentioned earlier that I’m all in for these changes and actually think DVC should be doing even more (and they probably will).

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

@AnnaKristoff2013 & @Brian Noble

Why is it Marriott and Wyndham have so strict rules about renting, when the 2021 FL statutes gives owners the right to rent etc?

Is it because of how the HOA Association is structured or how the ownership is structured like a trust vs a deeded ownership like DVC?

Curious to know what makes DVC different vs the other major players - if there are any differences at all.

Wyndham doesn’t outlaw rentals. They just ban “commercial renting.” (The same as Disney theoretically does). That does not run afoul of the FL statute. They just actually enforce the rule, and enforce it severely.

Wyndham also has its own internal rental arm, that it lets owners post with. It takes a cut of course and the terms are such that nobody is going to profit from it (except Wyndham), but it exists.

 

[Sandisw]

Not entirely sure what you're getting at here but here's the bottom line:

- Percent of professional renter points earmarked for Studio rooms, cheap views and seasons: 99%

- Percent of everyday owner points earmarked for Studios rooms, cheap views and seasons: something less than 99%. Significantly less.

I really don't understand why people are opposed to stopping the obviously abusive professional renter activity, and putting more of those Studios in the hands of everyday owners. But if that's the hill someone wants to die on...

I haven’t read many if any posts whherr people are opposed to DVC enforcing the whole not for commercial purpose clause.

Some just don’t think that the impact to availability, especially for those hard to get rooms and hard to get times is going to be meaningful better.

Some also want to see that DVC is distinguishing reasonably between those renting under the rights we have and those abusing the system.

That’s where I am. Crack down on those who have bought a ton of points for the main purpose of renting but leave the average owner you may have a handful of reservation yearly in the names if other alone.

Since the new terms do say that owners can use the membership family and friends occasionally and some level of renting needs to be allowed, then it makes sense to me for DVC to create measures that balance the two.

 

[Sandisw]

Do you know when DVC removed the reference to the 20 reservations per 12 months rolling?

Unfortunately no because I think it was removed without any announcement.

I think one would have to find all the amendments. Since the contract that I bought in 2009 are now longer owned, my account only has documents related to what I currently own.

 

[Sandisw]

I think that this conflates two separate but related concepts: 1) What constitutes a prohibited rental, and 2) How Disney can identify people engaged in prohibited rental activity.

A single non-personal-use rental is prohibited, even if you ever only do it once over the lifetime of your ownership. We can go back and forth for days over what constitutes personal use for the purposes of the various terms and conditions (and Disney has given us some new hints about how they intend to interpret those provisions), but the second that line is crossed, then Disney is entitled to cancel that reservation.

Having said that, given that Disney can't peer inside our heads to accurately discern our intent for every rental, I suspect that you are right as a practical matter--that they will use frequency and regularity as the primary metrics for trying to identify owners engaged in prohibited rental activity, and that they will start by going after the biggest offenders where there is little doubt that the activity is commercial in nature.

Personally, I'd argue that anyone who is renting a portion of their points to strangers every (or every other) use year is no longer using those points for personal use. It may not rise to the level of a commercial enterprise, but I wouldn't consider it personal use as required by the terms. But, early on at least, I also don't think that Disney will bother going after many of the small fish because it'll be much harder to discern intent, and the benefits of canceling those reservations are much smaller. They may feel compelled to do so at a later date if they're not seeing the desired impacts though.

So, if they use the word leasees under personal use in the contract, how can one interpret that that a single rental can’t fall under the personal use clause?

But that is why I have said they should have to at least consider that reservations in the names of others may not all be rentals or even any are rentals.

And that is why I do see them using volume…whether that’s 5, 10, 20c monthly. Rolling window etc as the metric for review because then it does give them the ability to decide.

Since they have now clarified that using points for family and friends occasionally is allowed, separate from when you are with them, I’d be shocked to see them set that bar so low that they are canceling reservations that are indeed not rentals.

 

[Cyberc1978]

17 stripped contracts showing up on day from one broker is pretty good circumstantial evidence. We will see if the trend continues and if the market floods with with contracts, right now there is not an abnormal number for sale.....curious to see if that creeps up.

or move bookings from some contracts and transferring to others and clear the decks on some of their contracts to put on the market?

I would have expected a lot more if it was a rush to the gates.

If a commercial renter owns 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 points then I would have expected a lot more contracts each day.

Lets see when the week is over how the world looks.

 

[Sandisw]

If it’s a binary choice between keeping things as they are or burning it all down? Burn, baby, burn. But really, I’d just prefer the rules be upheld in the most strict manner imaginable. It won’t even matter to me since I don’t own at the offending resorts anymore, but it’s principle at this point.

In regards to renting- it’s almost always better to spec rent. $30+ a point is easy with the right spec rental. I’ve also paid $13 a point for spec rentals where I’m not really sure the reason it was priced that way, other than maybe they just wanted to cover dues and didn’t care to profit more. The beauty of being a renter is being able to grab last minute reservations that will go into holding for very cheap. Most spec rentals seem to aim for $21 a point, which doesn’t make sense and they should just rent the points straight, except for it possibly being more work.

I think this highlights that not owners renting, even spec, do not maximize profit, if they are not what we would all agree are in it for commercial reasons.

It is pretty easy to go on, grab a room, and offer it…

 

[Sykes]

So, if they use the word leasees under personal use in the contract, how can you say one rental can’t fall under the personal use clause?

We have gone over this…DVC can do what they want and ban rentals unless it’s an emergency but doesn’t mean it’s legal for them to do it.

I am saying that even one rental does not comply with the personal use requirement is prohibited, regardless of the fact that it is only one rental. Rentals are of course allowed, and "personal use" may extend to certain types of for-profit rentals (as we have discussed in the past), but the second that my intent is to use my membership for non-personal-use reasons (however that is defined), I'm in violation of the rules and subject to cancellation or other action.

My point is that while I expect them to use frequency and regularity as signals that someone may be violating the personal use restriction, that's not what actually what defines the restriction, it's just how they'll identify some subset of people violating the restriction that they might choose to go after. There will certainly be additional people violating the rule who they won't bother going after either because they're more difficult to identify or it's not worth the effort.

 

[mfortis]

That's only partially true.

if you have multiple contracts for the same resorts with the same UY, then you MIGHT be able to shift the points.

If you are transferring points, you only have 1 shot each UY.

All true, if you rebook a reservation you can rechoose what contracts the points are coming from. And if you are under the seven month window you can do it between contracts (resorts).
The partiality will come when you have mixed direct and resale contracts. You cant use a resale contact to book at the all new resorts.