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

They can’t do that. The contract limits what can be required. The maximum number of nights that can be implemented as a minimum for a reservation is 5 nights.

So, at most they could make all reservations require at least 5 nights but no more.
Whoa! This is the first I've ever heard of this-- all resorts have the ability to require 5 night minimum stays, for real?
In the meantime, if a few people are shaken out of the tree through FUD, fine.
I think that it would definitely nudge people who were on the fence to sell-- not sure how big that category is. I also have seen several people on the boards say they aren't coming to the U.S. for a few years and will just rent... might push some of them to sell too, to get ahead of any bigger wave?
How does Disney know I am gifting the points vs renting the points for $$?
How does Disney know they are my family vs complete strangers?
I haven't seen Disney clarify what personal use is. (Which in my opinion is key here since they are the ones who will be making decisions and enforcing policy).

I don't know the percentage of points that we gift in a year. (That might be interesting to go back and check :) ) But, what if more than 50% of the reservations we make are for family members? (Frankly--that day may be coming as DH and I get older and less able to make trips to WDW and DL). Will Disney have some sort of formula where they start canceling reservations?
Disney has so so so much more information on most people than they realize. They can see if these are people you used to visit with together (and still do), they can see if you have ever scanned in for rides together with your magic bands, if you are linked in friends and family, etc. I am sure they are going to start on the conservative side, there are several factors that all indicate commercial renting that they can use as as first cut.
I must say there is what I would say is an unusual market of confirmed reservations. It is clear what is happening and fixing it is good for the people who want to vacation at Disney. There must be groups who have formed partnerships to collect contracts and book the desirable rooms and dates. Like some have said there are likely bots involved with the amount of walking that goes on.

I am curious to see the fallout. How much will this impact resale? If it is significant will the rofr dude actually wake up? Of course that does not mean they can sell more at the direct rates but today’s news can increase the difference in resale vs direct. It seems to me Disney wants a weak resale market. They want to be the ones buying when someone wants to sell but at a low price.

I think there will be groups who start to offload contracts. It is so easy for Disney to know who is buying contracts to rent. In fact they already know. Someone with one contract who rents half their points is not the target. It is the people with max contracts and points who rarely if ever actually go to Disney.
I agree with this. I think a lot of commercial renters may wait to see if Disney is serious before selling, but others know who they are and will try to offload contracts that are still above where they bought them while they can.
You’ll have to keep imagining. As with the other (much larger) timeshare operations that already went through this… lots of people threaten lawsuits. None really follow through.
I believe I read that there were time share lawsuits when some of the other programs cracked down, but none of them were successful.
Disney is already expecting lawsuits if you read the terms and conditions. I have mixed feelings. Certainly the rental business has become very large and affects ability to make reservations. That’s said, I have rented my points out in the past as well as rented points. Sometimes we go elsewhere and simply have points that are not going to be used.

If Disney gave a better cost to points for cruises, I would never have left over points.
It would absolutely help curb the casual renter if Disney made it easier (really less punitive) to trade DVC points for cruises, hotels in domestic and overseas parks, ABD, etc., but I don't think Disney is going to want to give resale owners many opportunities... cracking down on renting is another way of moving people from resale to direct if they crack down hard enough.
Reading various posts / threads on various platforms. Here are some things I have seen said by others in various places
  • MS has told someone that they have implemented a digital tracking system to determine if a member has a certain % of reservations that are not in the owners name and then it will get manually reviewed by a person
  • Members have suggested they will just leave themselves as the lead guest to avoid being flagged as a rental
  • Another report of a DVC higher up confirming a tracking system has been established
These points taken together are actually foreshadowing a future headache for owners-- potentially having to show our ID when we check in. If all the frequent renters plan to evade the rules by leaving themselves on the reservation, Disney may decide to either force us all back to the front desk or to randomly do spot checks during the stay.
I also wonder if it will put more pressure on the properties where you can put 5 in a studio and 1 bedroom, given how many families of 4 are often visiting.
However, there are other ways for Disney to determine if you the owner actually shows up.
That is incredibly dangerous for everyone involved. Disney should legit be locking down/suspending any members they find doing this.
Yeah, I agree it would be dangerous for the people leaving valuables in the room, to say nothing of having to explain to Disney at check-in that they have never met so-and-so (or lie and risk getting trespassed). But also it would only be a matter of time until Disney or a 3rd party rental co. got sued (probably unsuccessfully) for complications arising from this scheme. I absolutely think some rogue individual renters with lots of points will try it, but I would be shocked if the major 3rd parties allowed it.
That is great information!!! And it makes sense to have a tracking system.

I get that some might keep their name but that is going to make renting studios much harder for those that are capped at 4.
Could shift demand away from Duos, from 4 bedroom rooms and towards 5 bedroom rooms (and maybe add demand for 2bd?).

No question It’s a terrible idea for a renter to agree to that.

I was referring to DVC looking at the ones with an owner as a guest and deciding they have the right to cancel one.

As long as an owner is a guest, I see no way for DVC to have grounds to cancel it.
I can see a few things that would suggest owner as lead guest is a lie, information that is readily available to Disney. It really depends how serious they are about enforcing their rules.
If DVC is already questioning whether someone is renting for commercial purposes and then sees the person’s name on several reservations to which different groups of people have been added, they could theoretically look at the reservations after they are used. They could use MDE and resort data to investigate whether the owner actually checked in (received a room key or accessed the room with a phone), whether everyone else in the room purchased/used park tickets and the owner did not, and whether the owner charged anything to the room. None of this information would prove anything, but it could be used to build evidence of a pattern. Then the owner could be issued a reminder that commercial use is prohibited and future reservations that appear to be commercial will be cancelled.

I doubt DVC would invest the time to do this, but they could.
My guess is that this would only be worth doing for people renting hundreds of points a year or more-- but they absolutely could do it with circumstantial evidence and then the person who got cancelled would need to affirmatively prove that they were actually there to get any kind of relief from a court.
Online check would have to end. Plus you'd have to prove that somebody else didn't open the doors all the time, plus staying at DVC doesn't require going to a theme park nor having tickets. It's part of what makes policing this very tricky and where I have doubts on their doing this well.
I am worried that online check-in (without at least some stop at the front desk) may end if Disney starts to see an uptick in leaving owner as lead guest with a bunch of rotating rando renters.
 
And Disney, with its $203B market cap and army of staff lawyers who get paid a salary regardless, not to mention outside counsel, is probably not staying awake at night worrying even about a commercial renter with thousands of points.

Bloomberg Law has reported that Disney has around 300 lawyers on staff in-house, and another 1,100 on retention. Granted, those are spread out across all aspects of their businesses, but likely mostly in entertainment and business law, so a contract battle with a few vocal “professional DVC enters” probably doesn’t even make for decent water cooler chat.
Right but they are somehow still not stopping people that they know are commercial renters so as I keep saying something is keeping them from doing that and its most likely some type of legality or benefit to them or they would stop it period.
 
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Yeah I dont see why a broker would get anything. This lies solely with the owners, the only time a broker should get any info on this is if the broker is the one who owns the contracts.
Except the language in the POS for the new resorts specifically lists “creating, maintaining, or frequent use of a rental or resale website” as additional criteria for identifying commercial use.

5.7 Except for Ownership Interests owned by DVD, rentals of Vacation Homes to the general public by any of The TWDC
Companies including DVD and BVTC, reservation or use of Vacation Homes and facilities of a DVC Resort is limited solely to the
personal use of Club Members, their guests, invitees, exchangers, and lessees and for recreational use by corporations or other similar
business entities owning Ownership Interests while staying as a registered guest at the DVC Resort. Except for any of The TWDC
Companies, purchase of an Ownership Interest and reservation or use of Vacation Homes and facilities of a DVC Resort for
commercial purposes or for any purpose other than personal use is expressly prohibited. BVTC shall be the sole determiner, in its
discretion, of any use or activity that does not constitute personal use or constitutes commercial use under this Agreement. Such
commercial purpose could include a pattern of rental activity of reserved Vacation Homes or frequent occupancy by others of reserved
Vacation Homes other than a Club Member or the Club Member's family; use of regular rental or resale advertising; creating,
maintaining, or frequent use of a rental or resale website; repeated or frequent purchase and resale of Ownership Interests whether in
the name of a Club Member or those related to such Club Member or through the use of entities, partnerships, or trusts; or the
acquisition of a number of Ownership Interests in excess of the amount of the maximum permitted ownership whether in the name of a
Club Member or those related to such Club Member or through the use of entities, partnerships, or trusts.
 
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I am worried that online check-in (without at least some stop at the front desk) may end if Disney starts to see an uptick in leaving owner as lead guest with a bunch of rotating rando renters.
I’m doubtful this would happen. They’re already leaning pretty heavily away with the traditional check in desk (Poly Tower for instance)
 

I would disagree with this statement.

If I am paying the MF fees and “renting” out my excess points to cover my costs, that would absolutely be personal use.

What I believe DVC is looking at is those who use the points as a business. Maybe never using them for themselves.
You can disagree with it, but from a legal perspective (and income tax perspective) what you are describing is a side hustle business that you take the profit from and spend on/at Disney. Owning points you never intend to use and make money off of is commercial use, even if it's only 10/20/30% of the total points you own.

Whether or not Disney is OK with it if they see you spending more money than you're making from rentals at their parks, resorts, vacations, merch, etc., is a totally different question. I could imagine (but certainly wouldn't promise!) that if they see DVCMember123 likely rents about 1500-2000 points a year (not clear on some of the edge cases), but spends $50,000 a year at various Disney parks/merch/travel, they probably aren't interested in cracking down on DVCMember123, who's ongoing loyalty is very profitable for them. But DVCMember321 who rents only 500 a year and doesn't spend much other money at the parks (perhaps they have an AP visit often but not a lot of other spending beyond dues) would be a more attractive target for enforcement.

I'm extremely cynical and my guess is that they will start with pure commercial enterprises, move on to people renting more than half of their points with huge total numbers of points (perhaps avoiding the ones who plow all the money back into Disney) and then assess if it's helped them fill more hotel rooms closer to rack rates. I think they only go beyond that if they are having trouble filling hotel rooms without major promos.
 
Right but they are somehow still not stopping people that they know are commercial renters so as I keep saying something is keeping them from doing that and its most likely some type of legality or they would stop it period.
There are plenty of other things that would stop them aside from legality, including what I think is the biggest reason. I've predicted for months that they would want to keep resale prices high while selling as much PVB Tower as they can and then start the crack down after they've depleted the market for people who know about resale but still want PVB direct above $200.
 
It seems to be the understanding that if the owner is not on the reservation then it’s renting.

How do you come to that conclusion? I mean there can be numerous reasons why the owner is not on the reservation - one being that it’s a rental.

Maybe I’m being naive and giving DVC too much credit but even though it’s up to DVC to decide if you are renting or not shouldn’t they have something to back their decision up? Something is not just reservations in the name of others.
 
Except the language in the POS for the new resorts specifically lists “creating, maintaining, or frequent use of a rental or resale website” as additional criteria for identifying commercial use.

Correct...so, they can definitely hold a broker accountable for using their own website from adversting and renting their own points.

And, this language does include that same word "frequent" which matches the new T & C's we attest to today. IMO, they purposefully did not include the rental website language in this new verision because, as I mentioned above, they don't have to...because the frequency of reservations on a membership is enough for them to hold an owner accountable.
 
It seems to be the understanding that if the owner is not on the reservation then it’s renting.
I’m not sure who that is directed at, but I am pretty sure no one has made that suggestion, and none of the more senior members of the forum would suggest that (we’ve been around this block a few times at this point). The language of the new rules even states explicitly that personal use extends to family and friends, so the by the very letter of the law, an owner doesn’t need to be in the reservation.
 
Whoa! This is the first I've ever heard of this-- all resorts have the ability to require 5 night minimum stays, for real?

I think that it would definitely nudge people who were on the fence to sell-- not sure how big that category is. I also have seen several people on the boards say they aren't coming to the U.S. for a few years and will just rent... might push some of them to sell too, to get ahead of any bigger wave?

Disney has so so so much more information on most people than they realize. They can see if these are people you used to visit with together (and still do), they can see if you have ever scanned in for rides together with your magic bands, if you are linked in friends and family, etc. I am sure they are going to start on the conservative side, there are several factors that all indicate commercial renting that they can use as as first cut.

I agree with this. I think a lot of commercial renters may wait to see if Disney is serious before selling, but others know who they are and will try to offload contracts that are still above where they bought them while they can.

I believe I read that there were time share lawsuits when some of the other programs cracked down, but none of them were successful.

It would absolutely help curb the casual renter if Disney made it easier (really less punitive) to trade DVC points for cruises, hotels in domestic and overseas parks, ABD, etc., but I don't think Disney is going to want to give resale owners many opportunities... cracking down on renting is another way of moving people from resale to direct if they crack down hard enough.

These points taken together are actually foreshadowing a future headache for owners-- potentially having to show our ID when we check in. If all the frequent renters plan to evade the rules by leaving themselves on the reservation, Disney may decide to either force us all back to the front desk or to randomly do spot checks during the stay.
I also wonder if it will put more pressure on the properties where you can put 5 in a studio and 1 bedroom, given how many families of 4 are often visiting.
However, there are other ways for Disney to determine if you the owner actually shows up.

Yeah, I agree it would be dangerous for the people leaving valuables in the room, to say nothing of having to explain to Disney at check-in that they have never met so-and-so (or lie and risk getting trespassed). But also it would only be a matter of time until Disney or a 3rd party rental co. got sued (probably unsuccessfully) for complications arising from this scheme. I absolutely think some rogue individual renters with lots of points will try it, but I would be shocked if the major 3rd parties allowed it.

Could shift demand away from Duos, from 4 bedroom rooms and towards 5 bedroom rooms (and maybe add demand for 2bd?).


I can see a few things that would suggest owner as lead guest is a lie, information that is readily available to Disney. It really depends how serious they are about enforcing their rules.

My guess is that this would only be worth doing for people renting hundreds of points a year or more-- but they absolutely could do it with circumstantial evidence and then the person who got cancelled would need to affirmatively prove that they were actually there to get any kind of relief from a court.

I am worried that online check-in (without at least some stop at the front desk) may end if Disney starts to see an uptick in leaving owner as lead guest with a bunch of rotating rando renters.

Yes, all the contracts have language regarding that they can institute a minimum stay but it can never be more than 5 nights....so, they can't make it a 7 night stay.

In terms of the whole guest thing, and check in, etc, that would fall on the Resort staff which is covered under the property management agreement we have with Disney.....those fees would be passed along to us with that contract being larger....it would not come out of DVC's management fee (as they don't manage what happens at the resorts).

I just do not see that DVC is going to make it harder for owners to use their memberships and make them "prove" they were were, cancel online check in, so we have to check in in person? It makes no logical sense for DVC to go to those lengths...

They don't need to because my guess is that the % of owners out there who are big time renters who might even try this trick would be so small that it would not be worth it and in all my conversations with DVC, they at least always indicated that any rules and enforcement would be ones that are in the best interest in the community as a whole.

I think that what they have done here is given themseleves something more to support their case for those owners they want to target and my guess is it really is going to be the owners who have thousands and thousands of points...
 
Right but they are somehow still not stopping people that they know are commercial renters so as I keep saying something is keeping them from doing that and its most likely some type of legality or benefit to them or they would stop it period.

Its not that....its that prior to this new information, DVC had a very high definition of what it meant to use your membership for commerical purposes.

For all we know, they still will.....no matter what you or anyone here thinks, DVC can decide what it looks like in a membership to be considered too frequent and too regular to be personal use...

So, any enforcement...or lack there of...is because DVC didn't want to enforce stricter rules....with the ability to rent much easier now than you could 20 years ago, and with the amount of complaints they were getting, they have decided to have owners at least attest every time they book to understanding "personal use" with the link right there.
 
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I’m not sure who that is directed at, but I am pretty sure no one has made that suggestion, and none of the more senior members of the forum would suggest that (we’ve been around this block a few times at this point). The language of the new rules even states explicitly that personal use extends to family and friends, so the by the very letter of the law, an owner doesn’t need to be in the reservation.
It was merely an observation. Allegedly DVC should have a system in place to see if an owner is on the reservation or not and if there were too many reservations which didn’t have the owners name then the owner might be in breach.

I don’t see this as black or white there will always be many shades of grey.
 
I’ll go back again to the DAC and DAS lawsuits.

Disney, constantly projecting the most family-friendly, diverse, and welcoming image possible, has been more than willing to take on the potential PR suicide that comes with images of physically and developmentally challenged guests in wheelchairs, walkers, and other mobility devices picketing outside the theme parks and on courtroom steps. Even so, they took the DAC lawsuit (one of 40) all the way to the Eleventh District COP and were victorious, and are showing no signs of shying away from any litigation surrounding the changes to DAS last year.

In other words, if Disney wants to fight you, they will, and they’re willing to go to the mattresses with anyone, and this is purely about contract law and money. None of the grey area or emotional ambiguity of theme park ride access.
 
You can disagree with it, but from a legal perspective (and income tax perspective) what you are describing is a side hustle business that you take the profit from and spend on/at Disney. Owning points you never intend to use and make money off of is commercial use, even if it's only 10/20/30% of the total points you own.

Whether or not Disney is OK with it if they see you spending more money than you're making from rentals at their parks, resorts, vacations, merch, etc., is a totally different question. I could imagine (but certainly wouldn't promise!) that if they see DVCMember123 likely rents about 1500-2000 points a year (not clear on some of the edge cases), but spends $50,000 a year at various Disney parks/merch/travel, they probably aren't interested in cracking down on DVCMember123, who's ongoing loyalty is very profitable for them. But DVCMember321 who rents only 500 a year and doesn't spend much other money at the parks (perhaps they have an AP visit often but not a lot of other spending beyond dues) would be a more attractive target for enforcement.

I'm extremely cynical and my guess is that they will start with pure commercial enterprises, move on to people renting more than half of their points with huge total numbers of points (perhaps avoiding the ones who plow all the money back into Disney) and then assess if it's helped them fill more hotel rooms closer to rack rates. I think they only go beyond that if they are having trouble filling hotel rooms without major promos.

Here is the thing though...it is still about personal use and we have updated language to help us with that.... We know using it ourselves and others is okay....and that letting family and friends go occassionally without us is okay....but we also know that they can say we might be in violation of personal use if they believe we have "frequent and regular reservations for rent/sale".

But only DVC knows what will meet that requirement.....what do they think is occasional? What do they think it "frequent and regular"?

Owners are the ones who will have to, based on their individual situations, determine if renting XYZ will be seen by DVC as "frequent and regular".... or whether or not it will not be seen that way....


My own thoughts are that they will be monitoring large point owners and not small point owners...meaning, those with thousands and thousands of points and leave the rest alone.

It would just get too messy and too complicated to do that and they did seem to indicate last year that the large point owners were the ones they felt were not using their membersihps correctly.
 
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It seems to be the understanding that if the owner is not on the reservation then it’s renting.

How do you come to that conclusion? I mean there can be numerous reasons why the owner is not on the reservation - one being that it’s a rental.

Maybe I’m being naive and giving DVC too much credit but even though it’s up to DVC to decide if you are renting or not shouldn’t they have something to back their decision up? Something is not just reservations in the name of others.

I think where this comes from is the word "personal".....and why this is always a great topic to debate.....and I think that is why DVC wrote these the way they did....they make clear that personal includes family and friends and renters.

The statement that now says "personal use is not frequent and regular reservations for rent/sale" implies that renting is allowed as long as it doesn't meet that threshold....of course, that threshold isn't defined and DVC gets to decide that.

Some have read elsewhere that they have gotten confirmation that DVC will have a program that does indeed flag memberships when a certain % of reservations without an owners name are there....but that doesn't mean that the memberships is in violation...it just means that DVC will be using that method to potentially find those memberships that could be in violation.

And, if they are going after large point memberships....which seemed to be the target from what they said last year.....then this would make sense.....

Its not going to be black and white and it shouldn't be....because life happens.....
 
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I really don't think this is going to affect the average member. If you rent some points because of a last minute cancellation, gift an Aulani room as a honeymoon gift to a relative, or travel with friends and have a lead guest with a different last name you'll be ok.

It was like the old FP+ and DAS changes. Sweeping system changes, but only a select group was actually negatively affected and trespassed from Disney for circumventing the rules and profiting monetarily.

The bottom line is Disney doesn't want to lose money. It doesn't care about members having more access to villas under seven months. It doesn't want third party rental companies profiting off booking "deluxe rooms for the price of a value." Look at all those websites and how they advertise what a DVC rental can do for you. Disney would rather the guests pay rack rate or book a discounted cash stay through Disney and then purchase their own DVC if interested during their magical vacation.
 
Its not that....its that prior to this new information, DVC had a very high definition of what it meant to use your membership for commerical purposes.

For all we know, they still will.....no matter what you or anyone here thinks, DVC can decide what it looks like in a membership to be considered too frequent and too regular to be personal use...

So, any enforcement...or lack there of...is because DVC didn't want to enforce stricter rules....with the ability to rent much easier now than you could 20 years ago, and with the amount of complaints they were getting, they have decided to have owners at least attest every time they book to understanding "personal use" with the link right there.
They obviously have an issue with commercial renting and they are choosing to not stop it. You have to wonder why they dont want to completely stop it, yet put intentionally vague language scaring people away from it or leaving it up to interpretation to discourage it.
 
Whew what a thread.

I think this comes down to the question of does a member frequently rent out points for profit…. which to me means more often than not they are receiving more revenue than the cost of their dues.

“We are reviewing owners who seem to own large numbers of points just to make a profit… DVC is actively figuring out ways to go after that, and stop that to the best of our ability.”

So, if someone has 2k points and has dues of $18k then in theory they could rent 1k or less points out at $18 per point and it not be commercial because they are not making a profit.

You can scale that up or down based on # of points.
 



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