Maistre Gracey
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2002
- Messages
- 11,529
I'm far from a legal guru, but I always thought DVC reserved the right to change anything in the POS if they believed it was in the Club's best interest?I have been going through my mind how legally DVD could possibly make resale purchasers have shorter and different booking periods than original purchasers and I have yet to come up with a way DVD could do it. They reserve the right to change the booking windows so that resort owners could have only a one-month advantage but they have not reserved any right that they could have different booking periods depending on how you bought into DVC.
People assume, and I often hear it on these boards, that DVD can just do anything it wants. No it cannot. There are many things it cannot change either because things are considered material rights of ownership or because it reserved no right to do so in the documents that were provided as part of every purchase. Each original purchaser from Disney has a contract that includes whatever the offical documents said at the time and all of those heretofore have expressed that each owner will have the same home resort and other resort reservation periods (again they can change the number of months out for reserving but it must apply equally to all owners).
When an owner sells, he sells the same rights he had and the purchaser gains all the same rights under the documents given to the original purchaser. Absent from those documents is the reservation of any discretionary right to make resale purchasers have shorter reservation periods. If DVD were to try to do it, that would be a material change to the ownership rights of any exisiting member and it would require a vote of the actual members (not DVD voting for the members) to make such a change.
The only possible way Disney could make such a change, assuming it can legally do it at all, is for a new resort. For example, it could attempt to put into the public offering documents and contracts for Aulani before it starts to sell that it reserves the right to provide for different booking periods for purchasers from orginal Aulani owners who buy from Disney. That way the new purchaser from Disney would be agreeing to that fundamental restriction that affects his ability to sell when he purchases.
Marriotts switching to a points system has its own legality issues. It of course did not have booking agreements before because set weeks do not require any. It is offering to existing owners a right to switch to a new system and when doing so it can set restrictions it wants which the exisiting owner would be agreeing to as part of the switch. They are trying to avoid any legal issues by making it all the owners choice via a new contract why theorectically not affecting ownership interests of set week owners who choose not to change, i.e., they will still have their set week.
I thought that's how they did the new booking policy..??
MG