Official Thread - New commercial use policy published 03/31

[DonMacGregor]

When you rent with a broker, the risk is still on the owner. I don’t think brokers will be in trouble, unless they are owners. Well, except that their entire business could go bust.

Obviously the broker isn't in any trouble with Disney as there is no privity in the contracts unless, as discussed above, the broker also owns points, which in at least one case they most certainly do, thereby also making them an owner in violation.

The point is that if any owner who uses a broker is in clear violation of the rental "reasons" as @Brian Noble puts it, there are going to be fewer and fewer owners willing to take the risk listing reservations on the broker sites. Note that that section only says "regular" and doesn't reference the number of rentals listed, the size or percentage of points being rented, etc. it just says "regular" (even more ambiguous and flexible for Disney).

 

[Flash_Sloth]

I actually thought about that. They changed the policy yesterday, can they go after owners today and claiming they are in breach? After all owners did or did they? adhere to the past policy. Now come 1 day later and Disneys says you are in breach. Wouldn’t that be considered bad faith on Disneys side?
If Disney want owners to adhere to the new policy should they have ample time to get their ducks in a row?

We've all had to check the "not for commercial use" box for new or modified reservations for some time now. Has it been 11 months yet? We have been warned.

 

[RickNJane]

• Cancel future reservations; or
• Restrict Owner(s) and Associate(s) access to online booking; or
• Restrict Owner(s) reservations to be made only in the name of the Owners) and Associate(s); or
• Restrict reservations to be made only at the Owners) home Resort; or
• Restrict Owner(s) and Associate(s) ability to modify reservations including any name or date-based modifications; or
• Restrict banking, borrowing, and transferring of Points; or
• Limit or remove Owner(s) access to incidental benefits (including, by way of example only and without limitation, suspension of exchange privileges with Disney affiliates and third-party exchange companies); or
• Restrict adding Associate(s) names; or
• Remove existing Associate(s) names; or
• Restrict check-in activities such as use of online check-in, direct-to-room, or other mobile check-in activities now known or hereafter devised

I would love to see DVC publish the number of times they did any of the above. Maybe not the member names, but just a tally of what action they have taken. In the past it has been all rhetoric and no visible results or actions. Post/publish the actions and maybe that would give commercial folks pause. As it is right now, rules without enforcement or consequences is no rule at all.

 

[Tatebeck]

We've all had to check the "not for commercial use" box for new or modified reservations for some time now. Has it been 11 months yet? We have been warned.

I think it was June when it was added, so around 10 months. Still plenty of time to accrue a bunch of reservations

 

[cruisehopeful]

I personally wish that warnings would have been sent out already to people who are obvious commercial renters that have broken a majority of their guidelines

I think they might just be doing a basic letting everyone know so that the offenders can't say they were singled out or discriminated against.

It reminds me of a time that I was walking my 5 dogs on leash through a park that we walked through just about every day. An animal control officer was there and asking a woman about her dog's license and wanted the women's name and information. The woman had her dog running off leash, which is illegal where we were. The lady never gave her info. She just kept yelling at the officer and pointing at me and demanding that the officer ask me about my dogs and for my name and address. She was hollering that the officer was picking on her and that the officer should be going after me because I had more dogs than she did.

 

[Mr_Woodchuck]

I think they might just be doing a basic letting everyone know so that the offenders can't say they were singled out or discriminated against.

It reminds me of a time that I was walking my 5 dogs on leash through a park that we walked through just about every day. An animal control officer was there and asking a woman about her dog's license and wanted the women's name and information. The woman had her dog running off leash, which is illegal where we were. The lady never gave her info. She just kept yelling at the officer and pointing at me and demanding that the officer ask me about my dogs and for my name and address. She was hollering that the officer was picking on her and that the officer should be going after me because I had more dogs than she did.

I had a buddy growing up that would put his dog on a leash, and then let it go..so he could technically argue the dog was on a leash......not sure if it ended up working for him or not.

 

[PolyRob]

This adds to the thought of adding adult children to deeds if they are using the points regularly.

I can think of many more reasons not to add children to the deed than I can think of reasons to.

Creditors, Early Death, Divorce….

An easy way around this is adding children as associate members. They can make and modify reservations, but have no actual rights to the deeded property. Associate members listed as lead guests seem to count like deeded members based on the verbiage for commercial renting concerns.

 

[dcfromva]

One thing is clear to me--I bet Disney wishes they never allowed any renting of DVC points.

Maybe I am being a little cynical, but I would be super surprised if the latest actions against commercial renters will yield a lot more availability of high demand reservations. The reason is that some reservations have always been hard to get--even at the 11 month booking window. Even before we had online booking. (But, who knows, maybe next year at this time I will be singing Disney praises for their successful campaign...)

 

[PolyRob]

To stir the pot a little over my second cup of coffee this morning, the language in the "new" rules that I find most interesting from a spectator's standpoint is this (emphasis added):


I'm curious how the major rental brokers will rationalize around that one.

"Regular", not frequent or repeated.
"A dedicated website" as in a rental brokers website?
"Third-party service provider" as in a "third-party intermediary"?
"Or on any other media or platform now known or hereafter devised" which sounds like it includes tear-off flyers stapled to a telephone pole or messages written on a bathroom stall.

I just don't see how you can argue (or try to rationalize) that that specific language is not targeted right at online brokers.

Some brokers have their own rentals listed and they probably have 1,000 yearly rentals or more. They have every single day of the year listed in a studio at Boardwalk and AKV value. They have multiple of the same reservations. They also have a lot of other DVC resort listed.'

I don't think this is stirring the pot and I am glad you brought it up.

I feel much safer mentioning this on the boards now that DVCResaleMarket.com is no longer the sponsor of this section of the boards, but how is World of DVC not going to get caught up in this? DVC Fan films and records on property all the time. It then pushes people to DVC Resale Market to buy resale properties taking business away from Disney and/or DVC Rental Store where I am sure contracts owned by World of DVC (there have been reports of past employees being the seller of contracts in previous dumps) also takes business away from Disney. Not to mention Monera which gets contracts back if people default on top of the DVC Resale Market "instant sale" program

 

[Tatebeck]

One thing is clear to me--I bet Disney wishes they never allowed any renting of DVC points.

Maybe I am being a little cynical, but I would be super surprised if the latest actions against commercial renters will yield a lot more availability of high demand reservations. The reason is that some reservations have always been hard to get--even at the 11 month booking window. Even before we had online booking. (But, who knows, maybe next year at this time I will be singing Disney praises for their successful campaign...)

You may not see the availability lasting longer on the site, but as long as more actual members wanting to use the rooms are able to grab them right at open vs a bunch of renters, then I will be quite happy

 

[muppets3d]

I had a buddy growing up that would put his dog on a leash, and then let it go..so he could technically argue the dog was on a leash......not sure if it ended up working for him or not.

Most of us graduated fifth grade, but for others I guess it was really close.

 

[dcfromva]

You may not see the availability lasting longer on the site, but as long as more actual members wanting to use the rooms are able to grab them right at open vs a bunch of renters, then I will be quite happy

Fair point, I guess we wouldn't know one way or the other...

 

[Cyberc1978]

We've all had to check the "not for commercial use" box for new or modified reservations for some time now. Has it been 11 months yet? We have been warned.

True but.

After some of the website upgrades Disney went back to the old policy instead of the 2025 policy.

So yes we agreed it was for personal use but the new policy text in the updated T&C wasn’t included for quite a while.

For the past 11 months it was properly included in 7-8 months. Additionally it was for some time also only included in new reservations not when you modify a reservation.

 

[muppets3d]

True but.

After some of the website upgrades Disney went back to the old policy instead of the 2025 policy.

So yes we agreed it was for personal use but the new policy text in the updated T&C wasn’t included for quite a while.

For the past 11 months it was properly included in 7-8 months. Additionally it was for some time also only included in new reservations not when you modify a reservation.

I'm sure that DVC would say that none of this is new, commercial renting has never been allowed. They're just fleshing out the policy and clarifying where they can anticipate questions may come up.

 

[cruisehopeful]

An easy way around this is adding children as associate members. They can make and modify reservations, but have no actual rights to the deeded property. Associate members listed as lead guests seem to count like deeded members based on the verbiage for commercial renting concerns.

I need to look into this. I don't want my kids on the hook while I'm still alive, but also want to make it easier for them to use it when I die so they can decide if they want to keep it or not.

I feel much safer mentioning this on the boards now that DVCResaleMarket.com is no longer the sponsor of this section of the boards, but how is World of DVC not going to get caught up in this?

Based on the description of a commercial enterprise, I believe both World of DVC and David's are at risk. I was under the impression that The Timeshare Store also rents points as a middleman, but maybe since they don't film DVC it won't be a problem?

 

[Sandisw]

I find it pretty silly that someone with only 300 points to rent would be considered a "for profit" business but what do I know.

I have to agree and while we don’t know 100%, I do think when you read it all and take it in the context, especially that they included the actual POS language about the decision being reasonable, they updated the policy to truly stop owners running businesses.

 

[mkatsy]

I don't think this is stirring the pot and I am glad you brought it up.

I feel much safer mentioning this on the boards now that DVCResaleMarket.com is no longer the sponsor of this section of the boards, but how is World of DVC not going to get caught up in this? DVC Fan films and records on property all the time. It then pushes people to DVC Resale Market to buy resale properties taking business away from Disney and/or DVC Rental Store where I am sure contracts owned by World of DVC (there have been reports of past employees being the seller of contracts in previous dumps) also takes business away from Disney. Not to mention Monera which gets contracts back if people default on top of the DVC Resale Market "instant sale" program

I don’t think monera gets defaulted contracts back. They assign those loans in batches over to Liberty Bank in Connecticut. Liberty holds the collateral as the wholesale lender. Wouldn’t Liberty get the contract?

 

[Girlstar30]

How do you know notices haven't been sent out? Do you think someone caught with their pants down's first thought would be to run to the internet and advertise they were the first one caught in the trap? If it's someone with some serious skin in the game, their first call would likely be to their lawyer or a broker to unload some points.

We will all find out soon enough if any real action has been taken once renters post that their reservations have been cancelled and are upset. Right now there hasnt been any real action harming anyone and when there is people will post about it.

Warnings dont do anything but scare people so warnings dont mean anything whether they've been sent or not until actions are taken. Do I know if some warnings have possibly been issued to a few people, no, but I havent heard anything so it isnt bad enough yet to be excited about anything or care. If enough warnings were sent out to make an impact, we would find out and it would be a start so maybe me putting it like that would satisfy you more i dont really care, nothing substantial has been done is my point.

And I think the people here worried about renting are wasting their time too they have made it obvious they are going after large scale commercial renters first so unless they are that im pretty sure theres nothing to worry about.

 

[Sandisw]

Thanks for another informative TS post, Brian!!

As for the above, why do you think are they jumping thru all these new hoops, when we all know DVC knows exactly who the commercial renters are. They could have just given them the boot based on "no commercial" which was already the documents, no? Is it just to make it lawsuit proof? Just to keep others from establishing a new rental business? Just to make it look like they are doing something for all us complainers? All of the above?

The POS, for at least VGF and SSR, and maybe others states the board has adopted a policy/definition that constitutes this and that owners can request it as it’s a record of the association.

Which what I did last year and how I got the 2011 policy.

Since that language exists, I don’t think it would have made sense to not update that policy so when asked, owners are not getting a 15 year old policy.

Whether they needed to legally? Who knows but at least owners have something that gives them specific examples which, IMO, takes away a lot of previous ambiguity.

 

[Sandisw]

To stir the pot a little over my second cup of coffee this morning, the language in the "new" rules that I find most interesting from a spectator's standpoint is this (emphasis added):


I'm curious how the major rental brokers will rationalize around that one.

"Regular", not frequent or repeated.
"A dedicated website" as in a rental brokers website?
"Third-party service provider" as in a "third-party intermediary"?
"Or on any other media or platform now known or hereafter devised" which sounds like it includes tear-off flyers stapled to a telephone pole or messages written on a bathroom stall.

I just don't see how you can argue (or try to rationalize) that that specific language is not targeted right at online brokers.

There are FAQs that seem to indicate using brokers is allowed.

To identify frequent or regular, I would think they can require rental contracts since the POS requires them.