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

[zavandor]

Could DVC ask to show proof of employment when checking in?

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

I generally think this will sort itself out in the next two years. From the dumping of AUL and BWV contracts starting last October, I'm pretty sure massive commercial renters were already contacted by Disney. This leaves the FB renters (you've seen them - Hey, experience renter here with 2,000 points to rent this and every year). That will likely be Disney's next target. The next battle will play out there. And inside of that, through many examples, it will become clear what is and what isn't commercial renting. My guess: if you regularly use your points for your family, you're probably fine. Another guess, the rental cites are soon going to be the ones policing this, as they don't want Disney to cancel reservations that they (meaning David's, DVC Store) technically sold, which would put them in legal exposure. So I think pretty quickly David's, DVC Store, etc. are going to figure out how to manage all this to protect their own business interests. The person who can't go to Disney this year because they have work responsibilities or are caring for an elderly relative or need to focus on something else is probably going to be just fine renting points. But unless you are some clear commercial operation on FB or elsewhere, the arbitrators of what is and what is not allow will likely quickly be the rental outfits themselves, as they have to most to lose if a reservation is cancelled by Disney. I wouldn't be surprised for David's / DVC Store / etc. to ask for a screen shot of total points and then do some calculations on how many points have been rented over the past year or so before agreeing to rent out an owner's points. I think something like that is likely coming. But again, we'll see.

I do think large players have been warned or otherwise see some changes in the DVC ecosystem they think suggests enforcement is coming…but I think mostly the more risk averse have sold so far, with a lot of them still waiting to see if any crackdown actually materializes and/or listing contracts at 125% of market price, content to wait 6+ months before selling. I think if all the big renters knew a big hammer was coming, we would see them more eager to sell before the price collapses instead of trying to sell stripped contracts at an ambitious $/pt rate?

Beyond that, I hope you are right— start with the biggest players and most egregious “mid-size” renters (let’s say 500-8,0000 points rented a year?) and then see what their spec renting problem and hotel occupancy problem look like before working their way down to the folks who actually use more than half of their points each year (if at all).

However, I did see someone was told my member services today they couldn’t change the name on a spec rental if it wasn’t a personal friend or family member—so maybe they want to tackle spec renting or not. I don’t know if that’s an official policy change from Disney (that someone in MS let slip early) or simply a misunderstanding but I really, really hope it’s true. Once again, the anecdote reminds me of the DAS crackdown where some people started getting random calls suggesting a hugely restrictive overhaul before the new rules formally rolled out but others discounted it as a random DAS evaluator just making new stuff up to be cruel.

 

[dcfromva]

This is what I believe, having read all the 7 gazzilion posts:

• Until last year I didn't believe renting was harming the system. I had never seen the brokers' websites or the Facebook groups. But people reporting multiple reservations for the same night at nearly impossible to get categories changed my mind. It's clear commercial renting should be stopped and I'm glad DVC is going for it (allegedly)
• I cannot be defined a commercial renter and I am not afraid to continue to rent the points I don't use in the same way in the future
• I think BrianNoble should have had the last word 80 pages ago. What is most likely to happen is similar to what happened for other timeshares, especially as DVC went into the direction of conforming to industry standards. They also had recently a job posting to recruit someone with experience from he market. So I think they'll go after the uber commercial renters, cancel some of their reservations and let chaos break loose on social media, severely curbing demand.

I, too, did not realize there was that many spec reservations available online. Obviously I don't know the cure that wouldn't also harm the rank and file DVC members. (But, then, I also don't have the same visabilty into the reservation system that DVC does).

But, I strongly disagree with DVC going in the direction of conforming to "industry standards". It took us 10 years to decide to purchase DVC (we purchased in 2002). DVC had an answer for every reluctance that we had. One of the big ones was the ability to book random nights because we were unable to take vacations that fit into a normal fixed week. Also, the ability to rent different sized accomodations depending on the need. DVC offered banking and borrowing points. And, yes, also the ability to rent points in an emergency. While it was not something we wanted to do, it was comforting to know the points wouldn't go to waste. DVC's program flexibilty (and resale value) were a couple of the reasons we purchased DVC and not some other timeshare. I always thought of DVC as the gold standard in leading the way on well managed timeshare programs.

Here are a couple of links in regards to the Wyndham ownership that I found interesting (in regards to industry standard):
https://www.redweek.com/resources/ask-redweek/wyndham-guest-cancellations

https://clubwyndham.wyndhamdestinat...owner-priority-reservations#oldTownAlexandria

I may be straying off topic here, but years ago we did look into Wyndham because they have a lot of great locations to stay. One of the reasons we didn't buy Wyndham was we didn't totally understand the system even though our friends tried to explain how it worked. . Another was it didn't seem like they had very good resale value. ( It seemed like it might have been difficult to sell if for some reason we were unable to use the timeshare. ) And, they just didn't seem as flexible as DVC.

 

[IMMkXLVI]

Here is a question.
How does a commercial renter with large contracts even sell them? Or am I incorrect for assuming commercial renters have contracts any larger than the consumer oriented DVC owner? Our contracts are 200 points or less. I doubt I'd want them any bigger than 250 tops. Just makes it harder to divey up between the kids if it ever came down to that.

IF commercial renters have larger contracts, 300+ points per contract, aren't they harder to sell resale? I've seen a few resale contracts worth 500 points but not many. Would the commercial renter be hoping for ROFR?

 

[Sandisw]

Well, we're a small-moderate sized business, and we have 127 employees. I maybe have 20 friends and family I speak with on a regular basis. I guess we'll agree to disagree.

The point is though that the contract limits corporations and just like the average owner, DVC decides when they believe an ownership is being used for purposes not allowed.

So, if they think corporations are using it to be what looks to be out of line, they get to make that decision. No different than any owner

 

[Sandisw]

Here is a question.
How does a commercial renter with large contracts even sell them? Or am I incorrect for assuming commercial renters have contracts any larger than the consumer oriented DVC owner? Our contracts are 200 points or less. I doubt I'd want them any bigger than 250 tops. Just makes it harder to divey up between the kids if it ever came down to that.

IF commercial renters have larger contracts, 300+ points per contract, aren't they harder to sell resale? I've seen a few resale contracts worth 500 points but not many. Would the commercial renter be hoping for ROFR?

They accumulate a lot of contracts under their memberships. And rent a lot of reservations on each one.

It’s not that they have bought individual large contracts.

It all comes back to what an owner is doing on their membership and if it rises to the level that the purpose of the owner is no longer vacations.

My guess here is that they would want to be able to enforce against owners who are associated with multiple memberships and make cumulative reservations well above what we should be allowed to do.

Example…my Aug UY has my adult children as owners but my June and Dec UY did not.

If I was renting on all three, and each, in isolation, doesn’t look out of line, but combining all it does, they can do something for all three memberships, which would impact my adult children as owners even if they membership they are attached to isn’t in violation.

 

[Sandisw]

I, too, did not realize there was that many spec reservations available online. Obviously I don't know the cure that wouldn't also harm the rank and file DVC members. (But, then, I also don't have the same visabilty into the reservation system that DVC does).

But, I strongly disagree with DVC going in the direction of conforming to "industry standards". It took us 10 years to decide to purchase DVC (we purchased in 2002). DVC had an answer for every reluctance that we had. One of the big ones was the ability to book random nights because we were unable to take vacations that fit into a normal fixed week. Also, the ability to rent different sized accomodations depending on the need. DVC offered banking and borrowing points. And, yes, also the ability to rent points in an emergency. While it was not something we wanted to do, it was comforting to know the points wouldn't go to waste. DVC's program flexibilty (and resale value) were a couple of the reasons we purchased DVC and not some other timeshare. I always thought of DVC as the gold standard in leading the way on well managed timeshare programs.

Here are a couple of links in regards to the Wyndham ownership that I found interesting (in regards to industry standard):
https://www.redweek.com/resources/ask-redweek/wyndham-guest-cancellations

https://clubwyndham.wyndhamdestinat...owner-priority-reservations#oldTownAlexandria

I may be straying off topic here, but years ago we did look into Wyndham because they have a lot of great locations to stay. One of the reasons we didn't buy Wyndham was we didn't totally understand the system even though our friends tried to explain how it worked. . Another was it didn't seem like they had very good resale value. ( It seemed like it might have been difficult to sell if for some reason we were unable to use the timeshare. ) And, they just didn't seem as flexible as DVC.

Opinion here…

I just don’t see DVC trying to define specific situations and going after them in isolation but looking at the behaviors and patterns of an owner.

Take spec rentals…there are tons of confirmed reservations but the ones targeted by the heavy hitters are your hard to get rooms.

All confirmed reservations need a lead guest name change and those who are renting outside limits would be doing that a lot.

So, they could just use that as a metric and when the level of name changes reached what would be considered way more than what a typical owner might do, it’s a clue this owners membership might be suspicious for being used for a commercial purpose.

IMO, that is what this new personal use word when you book will be used for. When you call, they add notes now.

And, I can’t beleive this move alone isnt making some who rent well above what would be considered in line with our right to rent, think twice.

They know they are monitoring. As I mentioned, I’ve been told by a few phone CMs, when asked if we will be getting anything from DVC about the new policy, they all stated it’s not new policy, just a new feature to make sure owners understand the rules.

We shall see what else, if anything, they do.

 

[IMMkXLVI]

This brings up another scenario, though less likely to be occurring en masse.
We have another timeshare through a large national hotel chain. They have rules to govern rules and are far stricter than DVC.
There is a rule that prohibits us from renting or even booking for a friend. So when we head down to Disney and invite them
along, we're covering their room since we know we'll abuse them as kid sitters!

We have one such trip scheduled. They are booked into our DVC and we are booked into the other timeshare. Whether we use them that way remains to be seen (lol) BUT on paper, the reservations are that way because we HAVE to be the lead guest. IF they traveled with us a lot, the reservations would always be listed this way and to DVC, it would appear as though we're not using our points for us but in reality, we are, indirectly. Of course renting fits the same "indirectly" argument.

We have Riviera (direct) and Grand Floridian (resale) contracts, both from 2024. Do the Florida condo laws being referenced here apply to us? I thought I read it doesn't apply to Riviera but what of GF?

EDIT:

What does the spec of "spec rental" mean?

 

[dcfromva]

EDIT:

What does the spec of "spec rental" mean?

Speculative rental. It means some folks may be cherry picking high demand periods and booking them before they have a renter.
New Years' Eve, for example.

 

[Brian Noble]

One of the big ones was the ability to book random nights because we were unable to take vacations that fit into a normal fixed week. Also, the ability to rent different sized accomodations depending on the need. DVC offered banking and borrowing points. And, yes, also the ability to rent points in an emergency.

Wyndham does all of these things. So does WorldMark. And several others. You can rent Wyndham stays to others once in a while, but I would not do it regularly.

we did look into Wyndham because they have a lot of great locations to stay. One of the reasons we didn't buy Wyndham [...] was it didn't seem like they had very good resale value.

This is a great reason not to buy from the developer. But, it is also a pretty good reason to buy it on the resale market! I put together a portfolio of several deeds at a net-zero cost to us, so if I have to give it away at the end, who cares? And as long as you have a better-than-average deed, measured by annual-cost-per-point, it is easy to find a taker.

 

[IMMkXLVI]

Speculative rental. It means some folks may be cherry picking high demand periods and booking them before they have a renter.
New Years' Eve, for example.

Thanks. It was the word I was missing. I had an an understanding of what it was but the abbreviated word illuded me.
Spec=speculative.

 

[mkatsy]

They accumulate a lot of contracts under their memberships. And rent a lot of reservations on each one.

It’s not that they have bought individual large contracts.

It all comes back to what an owner is doing on their membership and if it rises to the level that the purpose of the owner is no longer vacations.

My guess here is that they would want to be able to enforce against owners who are associated with multiple memberships and make cumulative reservations well above what we should be allowed to do.

Example…my Aug UY has my adult children as owners but my June and Dec UY did not.

If I was renting on all three, and each, in isolation, doesn’t look out of line, but combining all it does, they can do something for all three memberships, which would impact my adult children as owners even if they membership they are attached to isn’t in violation.

Since those three contracts are titled differently, do they show up on the same dashboard? Or do you have separate log in credentials? I’m just wondering if, in that scenario, Disney even realizes they are all tied to the same person.

 

[sndral]

…
However, I did see someone was told my member services today they couldn’t change the name on a spec rental if it wasn’t a personal friend or family member—so maybe they want to tackle spec renting or not. I don’t know if that’s an official policy change from Disney (that someone in MS let slip early) or simply a misunderstanding but I really, really hope it’s true. Once again, the anecdote reminds me of the DAS crackdown where some people started getting random calls suggesting a hugely restrictive overhaul before the new rules formally rolled out but others discounted it as a random DAS evaluator just making new stuff up to be cruel.

I don’t think that is a policy change, the basis for denying a lead guest change to facilitate a rental comes not from the commercial use provisions we’ve discussed, but rather from this paragraph IMO:
“No owner may directly rent, exchange or otherwise use his or her Ownership Interest without making a prior reservation of an available Vacation Home…on a first come, first served basis. DVD’s approval of a rental by an owner is not required after a reservation has been made in the renter’s own name. However, Ownership interests should not be purchased with any expectation that Vacation Homes may be reserved and rented to third parties [emphasis added.]”

…
They know they are monitoring. As I mentioned, I’ve been told by a few phone CMs, when asked if we will be getting anything from DVC about the new policy, they all stated it’s not new policy, just a new feature to make sure owners understand the rules.
…

To me this sounds just like what some folks were told when DVC started enforcing the one trade in or out per membership transfer language. The 1 per year limit was clearly spelled out yet MS in practice routinely ignored that rule & allowed owner’s w/ multiple use years to transfer in/out multiple times between their memberships. I wondered if suddenly enforcing the existing rule was in part to make it harder for the big players to move their points around, although I wasn’t sure that would have much impact.
However, changing the lead guest is at the heart of spec renting & I suspect that using the paragraph I cited above to not allow a lead guest change in appropriate cases may have a greater impact, assuming they do actually enforce it.
In my mind the spec renters are making a mockery of first come/first served. They reserve villas at 11 months & just hold on to them until a renter comes along at say 6 months, meanwhile, many owners tried to grab that villa at 11, 10, 9, etc. months. It’s like cutting in line for a ride, the spec renters have fictitious place holders holding a spot in the stand by line so their renters can show up at the last minute & cut through the line.

 

[JackosinDIS]

I don’t think that is a policy change, the basis for denying a lead guest change to facilitate a rental comes not from the commercial use provisions we’ve discussed, but rather from this paragraph IMO:
“No owner may directly rent, exchange or otherwise use his or her Ownership Interest without making a prior reservation of an available Vacation Home…on a first come, first served basis. DVD’s approval of a rental by an owner is not required after a reservation has been made in the renter’s own name. However, Ownership interests should not be purchased with any expectation that Vacation Homes may be reserved and rented to third parties [emphasis added.]”

To me this sounds just like what some folks were told when DVC started enforcing the one trade in or out per membership transfer language. The 1 per year limit was clearly spelled out yet MS in practice routinely ignored that rule & allowed owner’s w/ multiple use years to transfer in/out multiple times between their memberships. I wondered if suddenly enforcing the existing rule was in part to make it harder for the big players to move their points around, although I wasn’t sure that would have much impact.
However, changing the lead guest is at the heart of spec renting & I suspect that using the paragraph I cited above to not allow a lead guest change in appropriate cases may have a greater impact, assuming they do actually enforce it.
In my mind the spec renters are making a mockery of first come/first served. They reserve villas at 11 months & just hold on to them until a renter comes along at say 6 months, meanwhile, many owners tried to grab that villa at 11, 10, 9, etc. months. It’s like cutting in line for a ride, the spec renters have fictitious place holders holding a spot in the stand by line so their renters can show up at the last minute & cut through the line.

Interesting take.

I have read that wording before but couldn’t understand its purpose other than to say an owner does not need DVC’s approval to rent.

Is your interpretation that this gives DVC the right to refuse a change of lead guest?

 

[sndral]

My take is a bit more nuanced, I think it gives DVC the right to inquire if a lead guest name change is to facilitate a rental & if it is to refuse to make the change & require a cancel & rebook. I’ve always thought it interesting that you could fiddle all you wanted online w/ the guest names on a reservation except for the lead guest & for that you had to call (or more recently chat) & assumed it had something to do w/ that paragraph.
OTH, I see nothing in any of the documents that gives an owner an express ‘right’ to make a lead guest change for any reason. Not that I’d advocate for removing the flexibility to do so in personal use situations.

 

[disneylandtour]

Here is a question.
How does a commercial renter with large contracts even sell them? Or am I incorrect for assuming commercial renters have contracts any larger than the consumer oriented DVC owner? Our contracts are 200 points or less. I doubt I'd want them any bigger than 250 tops. Just makes it harder to divey up between the kids if it ever came down to that.

IF commercial renters have larger contracts, 300+ points per contract, aren't they harder to sell resale? I've seen a few resale contracts worth 500 points but not many. Would the commercial renter be hoping for ROFR?

I'd say that many commercial renters picked up resale contracts on the cheap. There would be ZERO advantage to having a direct contract used entirely for renting versus a resale contract. If you look at the resale market it is flooded with AUL and SSR (nearly all of them stripped). These are almost surely contracts that were once used for renting.

 

[Sandisw]

Since those three contracts are titled differently, do they show up on the same dashboard? Or do you have separate log in credentials? I’m just wondering if, in that scenario, Disney even realizes they are all tied to the same person.

They all show up on my dashboard and MS can see all of them when in call

My Aug UY only shows on my kids dashboard as that is all they own.

 

[Sandisw]

I do think large players have been warned or otherwise see some changes in the DVC ecosystem they think suggests enforcement is coming…but I think mostly the more risk averse have sold so far, with a lot of them still waiting to see if any crackdown actually materializes and/or listing contracts at 125% of market price, content to wait 6+ months before selling. I think if all the big renters knew a big hammer was coming, we would see them more eager to sell before the price collapses instead of trying to sell stripped contracts at an ambitious $/pt rate?

Beyond that, I hope you are right— start with the biggest players and most egregious “mid-size” renters (let’s say 500-8,0000 points rented a year?) and then see what their spec renting problem and hotel occupancy problem look like before working their way down to the folks who actually use more than half of their points each year (if at all).

However, I did see someone was told my member services today they couldn’t change the name on a spec rental if it wasn’t a personal friend or family member—so maybe they want to tackle spec renting or not. I don’t know if that’s an official policy change from Disney (that someone in MS let slip early) or simply a misunderstanding but I really, really hope it’s true. Once again, the anecdote reminds me of the DAS crackdown where some people started getting random calls suggesting a hugely restrictive overhaul before the new rules formally rolled out but others discounted it as a random DAS evaluator just making new stuff up to be cruel.

I can tell you that they have confirmed changing a name on a reservation even when saying it’s a rental under the personal use language. They simply added the note.

I think right now, based on all I am reading, MS hears rental and may have been instructed to say it’s not allowed.

But, there has been no change in MS changing lead guests even when rental comes up. Plus, since rentals are allowed, saying yes it’s for personal use is not a lie.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Since those three contracts are titled differently, do they show up on the same dashboard? Or do you have separate log in credentials? I’m just wondering if, in that scenario, Disney even realizes they are all tied to the same person.

I also think that even if they are not on the same dashboard, if you're using the same name, address, email, or SSN (pretty sure Disney has the SSN on all the contracts?) it would be very easy to link them together. For those who aren't purely commercial renters, you'll also probably be using overlapping identities in MDE after linking with your trip reservations.

The most sophisticated and cautious renters might have a variety of LLCs with different tax info and corporate addresses... but I'm not sure how many really went through the trouble.

 

[Sandisw]

Interesting take.

I have read that wording before but couldn’t understand its purpose other than to say an owner does not need DVC’s approval to rent.

Is your interpretation that this gives DVC the right to refuse a change of lead guest?

There is another clause that I posted earlier that also says owners cant rent or use membership without making a prior reservation.

To me, that would be enough for DVC to not prevent name changes outright.

But, nothing to stop them from monitoring # if lead guests changes and set it to flag at a level about what an average might do.

Your commercial renter renting tons of them is going to be doing it way outside the norm.

That IMO is how they can attack the spec rental of hard to get rooms by those whose purpose is commercial.

But, it doesn’t force them make an owner who booked a BWv RV room for a family member, when they weren’t traveling, prove it’s for family.

Seems like they have a lot of ways to get at the issue and keep it in the line of commercial.