New $500 Resale DVC Transfer Fee

[ChipTheRescueRanger]

I will happily pay the $500 if it means the previous owners rights are passed across in the admin of the account change over.

So Blue cards for all resale buyers if buying a previous direct contract. No resort restrictions.

 

[Sandisw]

Don't want to derail this thread, but those meetings took place right after the new personal use checkbox and we all had many questions about that.

There was only one meeting that happened. It was in June. The September one was canceled because the FL law changed in July back to once a year.

Didn’t sound like the June meetings were well attended either and there were mo reports from the usall sources.

 

[eticketplease]

I will happily pay the $500 if it means the previous owners rights are passed across in the admin of the account change over.

So Blue cards for all resale buyers if buying a previous direct contract. No resort restrictions.

This assumes you’re buying a contract from somebody who bought it directly from Disney. Remember there are plenty of contracts that change hands multiple times long after Disney sold the original one so in that case, the previous owners would not have blue card rights most likely.

 

[Sandisw]

I don't have a strong opinion about the legality of this fee. I can see the argument that it's been done by others for decades and the statute forbids the association to impose a fee and this is a different company.
However, let's reason by absurd. If a $500 fee is legal, why not $1,000? And why not $10,000? A 10k fee would effectively kill the resale market once and for all. It would be an immense win for all timeshare companies. If they can impose any fee they like, then why not 10k? Is it just optics?
Is there a law that allows to impose a fee to recoup the expenses of setting up the membership for a resale buyer? Where is it? Does the process need to be audited to guarantee fairness like the budgets?

And the most important question: why doesn't the DVC management company handles new memberships? Like it has been said, resale buyers are not DVD clients, why is the process of setting them up is handled by DVD instead the DVCMC? I think this could easily be handled by MS CM, within the normal budget.

From what i as told is DVCMC does both. They do the work for DVD and do the work of management of the timeshare for owners.

So, they get their revenue from both and why MA does the administrative work for new memberships, etc for both direct and resale.

Basically, it’s two different “clients”.

However, it does bring up a good question.

Does the contract our condo associations have with DVCMC to manage the program include this as one of their responsibilities required of them as part of the 12% fee?

I don’t believe it does but i dont know for sure.

 

[Sprinkles&Sprints]

I’m late to reading all of this, but I’m in the process of selling one of my contracts with a delayed close after Jan 1 (it already passes ROFR). Will keep everyone posted who - if anyone - is stuck paying the $500.

 

[Sandisw]

I’m late to reading all of this, but I’m in the process of selling one of my contracts with a delayed close after Jan 1 (it already passes ROFR). Will keep everyone posted who - if anyone - is stuck paying the $500.

Hopefully; we have that answer next week since I plan to ask about the fee at the meeting if no one else does first!

 

[Jlo85]

Which Disney attorney would that be the genius that cooked up the Disney + arbitration idea? Or would it be the rockstar that committed Discovery abuse (plaintiff requested sanctions) by introducing new evidence during a deposition - They just push the envelope until someone pushes back, it doesn’t make them right.

I am skeptical that DVC even runs things by legal before it implements changes. The Aulani subsidized dues scandal and Old Key West extension debacle suggest to me that DVC corporate just throws paint at the wall, hoping it sticks.

 

[Carouselofplanning]

From what i as told is DVCMC does both. They do the work for DVD and do the work of management of the timeshare for owners.

So, they get their revenue from both and why MA does the administrative work for new memberships, etc for both direct and resale.

Basically, it’s two different “clients”.

However, it does bring up a good question.

Does the contract our condo associations have with DVCMC to manage the program include this as one of their responsibilities required of them as part of the 12% fee?

I don’t believe it does but i dont know for sure.

Look the fee is most likely yet another measure designed to discourage resale. It’s a priority for them. It’s viewed as a direct competitor to DVD not as a customer base. They. Do. Not. Want. People. Buying. Resale. They can’t forbid it, but they don’t stop taking away its attractiveness where they can. This indirectly also hurts direct buyers but they, by and large, might not realize it yet. You want to sell? Here’s a fee. You want to add a few more points via resale to supplement your portfolio? Here’s a fee.

There is a tipping point where this treatment as a whole damages the core product and will start to limit their ability to increase pricing. That’s probably why the countermeasures happen gradually but persistently so the market acclimates to the product restriction with as minimal impact to pricing (and really, direct sales volume) as possible.

Kudos to the owners who know the law of this stuff and push back when appropriate. I have no idea whether this latest move is within their rights or not but someone raised a good point that is unsettling for direct and resale owners alike - what’s to stop them from making this fee $1000 or $10000? Imagine needing to sell due to life circumstances but Disney put in a price control that completely chills the resale market? I’m not so sure they understand people will eventually start looking at them like the snake oil salesman in the rest of the timeshare industry. Or if they do realize this, they simply don’t care.

They created their own problem with all of this. Timeshare now pays for hotel development. They don’t develop non DVC hotels anymore. This has the unintended side effect of having an incredible amount of inventory at their own resorts that they don’t control. So now they need to target “commercial renters” (the definition of which remains undefined). And, don’t hurt my direct sales volume, so we need to target resale as well with endless fees and restrictions. I don’t think DVC when it was founded was intended to be an endless supply of new hotel rooms.
That’s yet another piece to the value puzzle: supply. Disney hotel rooms (including DVC contracts) are valuable due to their limited supply. Keep adding supply - what happens? Demand eventually goes down. It’s basic economics. The idea that Disney World can sell an unlimited supply of hotel rooms and contracts is absolutely foolish.

Yet here we are with the unique set of problems this approach has created.

This is a side issue but I do think once Lakeshore is done they should take a very long pause on new development. Something tells me though they are getting ready to rip into a crescent lake resort next to add inventory.

Morning rant over.