Since have just joined
DVC as of last week so I am still a little new. But I did do my research on DVC for over six months. Somehow I missed this in looking over all the paperwork. I guess based on the postings in the rent/trade board their are a lot of people "breaking" the rules. Since I saw all the postings that occur there I just assumed it could be done. I understand that this is one of the reason they went to one transfer per account rule a year or two ago from what I picked up in previous posts.
I will have some extra points due getting the developer points and also getting 07 points (June UY) that will I will bank into 08. I was planning on doing a point transfer to another member so I don't have to deal with renters since it is only 37 points. I guess I will have to rethink this now?
An explanation:
1. When you purchase DVC, you buy a real estate interest in a "unit." A unit is usually a group of rooms and the purchase is similar to purchasing a condominium. The rooms are called "vacation homes" in the official documents to distinguish them from the unit and the actual real estate purchase you make.
2. Points are deemed to be symbols that represent your real estate interest. The documents declare that points have no monetary value. Thus, though everyone perceives their points have value, from a legal standpoint, they have none. It is the real estate interest itself that has value.
3. To maintain that legal lack of any monetary value in points, the documents also declare that you cannot transfer points for value, in the form of money or otherwise. In other words, you cannot transfer points for money because such an act would be giving points a monetary value when they are deemed to have none.
4. However, the documents also declare that you can rent or lease any portion of your real estate interest subject to the rule against doing so for a "comercial purpose" and a commercial purpose can include a pattern of rental activity from which DVC could conclude that you are acting as a "commercial enterprise." Recently DVC adopted the 20 reservation rule creating a presumption that you are violating the commercial purpose rule if you make more than 20 reservations per year. That was an interpretive rule (and one allowed if it is "reasonable" to enforce the commercial purpose rule, which it would likely be found to be) to give DVC some objective test that DVC personnel could appy without trying figure out for themselves what is meant by commercial purpose. Note, it only creates a presumption so you can still try to show to them when you make that 21st reservation that you really aren't engaging in a pattern of rental activity. The number is so high that it really will not effect many people (my inquiry to DVC management came back with an explanation that they will be counting number of separate reservation numbers per year, and thus those who do day by day reservations will not be effected because they end up with one reservation number, and they will also be looking at whether the reservations are made in the owners name, i.e., someone who makes a lot reservations in their own name will not necessarily have those counted against them). The new rule also restates that you cannot transfer points for value.
5. They also decided recently that you cannot make more than one transfer per use year. That is actually not a new rule. From the start of DVC and then for most of the years of its existence, the rule was that you could make only one transfer per year. The rule allowing multiple transfers was a change made about four years ago and thus all they have done now is go back to the old rule.
6. Why the 20 reservation rule and reversion back to one transfer per use year? The internet is partly to blame. Without it, there would be no real rental market and thus no reason to be concerned about rentals. What was going on is that a market developed and there was at least the perception that there were a number who had essentially gone into the business of renting DVC, buying large numbers of points (circumventing total point limits of 2,000 per resort, 5,000 total, by having more than one person purchase) and renting all the time. Proof of the truth of that perception was at least that there appeared to be persons on the internet who were always offering rentals including on ebay and the rent portion of this site and there were many rental offers for hard to get times like Christmas time, meaning the renter was probably making numerous reservations for hard to get times at 11 months out and then renting that time. (Even this site recently changed its rules for posting rentals by prohibiting such if you attempt to post already existing reservations for a specific time far in advance of that time).
7. That perceived or real rental activity caused many to complain, particularly the activity of getting hard to get times and renting them out. For a long time DVC did nothing and possibly for a long time the problem was more of a perception rather than real problem. But at some point fairly recently, DVC must have concluded that it had a problem that needed some action. Some here have expressed the belief that DVC's latest rules were put into effect to protect Disney's own rental market. I think not. In any event, I know DVC would never admit that was the purpose. By law, DVC management is a fiduciary of the members and must act in the best interests of the members when creating any rules. If it said it took the recent action to protect Disney's own rental interests, it would be conceding that it breached its fiduciary obligations by acting in Disney's own interest rather than the interests of the members, subjecting it to the risk that any such rules could be voided and a risk of fines. In other words, we should assume that the new rules are designed to address the problem created by members who apparently are in the business of renting and thus violating the rule against a "commercial purpose" and that the problem was noticeable enough that it was effecting other members ability to reserve rooms.
8. So basically what we have now is a DVC that is actually trying to enforce the "commercial purpose" prohibition. In that vein, the enforcement ultimately goes through rather low paid MS representatives who handle reservations. What we have is the usual problem that creates. Those MS personnel have been told of the new rules and that DVC is trying to crack down on commercial renters. Most of them don't really understand all the issues and we will have situations where they start doing things that are just incorrect. like telling you shouldn't do transfers or even cannot do one.
9. Now getting back to what you are allowed to do. You can rent your interest but can't do so for a commercial purpose, which does not prohibit an occasional rental as long as your real purpose of having points is mainly to use them yourself. You are prohibited from transfering points for value, mainly because they are deemed to have no value. However, that is a limited rule and there are ways to rent or even transfer points without attaching a value to them while still getting a value. For example, the "transfer" rule applies not at all to a member who rents by making the reservation in another's name using the members points because no transfer of points occurs. Also, even with a transfer, you can word the agreement to be a transfer of your real estate interest and then agreeing to transfer points to complete that agreement. In that way, you have not legally placed a value on the act of transfering the points. Moreover, no one is required to tell DVC that they are doing a cash transfer and thus it knows that its real way of effectively enforcing its rule is by what it has already done, going back to the one transfer rule. Nevertheless, MS personnel, who mainly are not sure of what to do, may sometimes try to enforce things in creative and often incorrect ways because they now have this new job directive about enforcing the commercial purpose rule.
them to a friend. I don't know about you but I consider fellow DISers friends, and if my friend wants to give me a gift of money for my birthday, well. 
