Question on renting out points

[Brian Noble]

There is an excellent thread on timeshare tax matters on TUG. Worth reading for background, but the prior advice to work with a tax advisor still applies.

https://tug2.net/timeshare_advice/income_taxes_and_timeshares_from_an_accountant.html

 

[Nursemanit]

For income taxes you can deduct dues for operating expenses but not capital reserves and also any advertising fees or other costs of finding a renter.

Do you pay FL, home state and TA taxes (which I’ve seen mentioned here and assume means travel agent tax but I’m not sure if that’s right)?
TAT = Transient Accommodations Tax, imposed by the local government on hotel/timeshare stays. There are no such taxes for the DVC resorts at WDW, VB, or HHI. At Aulani the guest pays the TAT to the resort at the time of stay, and it will be the same at VDH. At VGC the TAT is included in the dues paid by owners each year, whether they use their points at VGC or not.

This is not accurate- Florida does not chage TAT when a timeshare owner uses their own timeshare but they do have a 6% sales and use tax if you rent out your timeshares .

Here is the form

https://floridarevenue.com/Forms_library/current/gt800034.pdf

 

[MamaKate]

Agree. Helpful thread. One question-- does anyone know how David's and DVC Rental compare as far as their contract with renters are concerned? Or do people think that the force-majeur scenario (nicely explained by CraigInPA above, thanks) gets handled in a similar fashion?

I'm curious too. Is DVC Rental's contract similar to David's when it comes to force-majeur? I have some points I need to rent and I'm wondering if DVC Rental or David's is better? Or if I should do it myself???

I rented some points direct many, many, many years ago and it went smoothly, but who knows now??? I'd rather use a third party, but I also don't want to get screwed if an unforeseeable circumstance arises...

 

[CarolynFH]

I'm curious too. Is DVC Rental's contract similar to David's when it comes to force-majeur? I have some points I need to rent and I'm wondering if DVC Rental or David's is better? Or if I should do it myself???

I rented some points direct many, many, many years ago and it went smoothly, but who knows now??? I'd rather use a third party, but I also don't want to get screwed if an unforeseeable circumstance arises...

I thought you could access the contracts on their sites before committing to rent through them - is that not so?

 

[MamaKate]

I thought you could access the contracts on their sites before committing to rent through them - is that not so?

Possibly lol. I'm currently just thinking about renting points so I haven't fully looked into yet. Just wondering if one company is better than the other if I decide to use a third party.

 

[CarolynFH]

Possibly lol. I'm currently just thinking about renting points so I haven't fully looked into yet. Just wondering if one company is better than the other if I decide to use a third party.

It might come down to how you balance risk (i.e., what happens if the resort closes?) vs. benefit (i.e., how much would each company pay you?).

 

[Chuck S]

Time seems to be the biggest advantage of using a broker. I never rented points until a couple of weeks ago. You have to verify that the reservation(s) are available, get the info from the renter, make the reservation, and so forth.

My policy was 50% of payment due at reservation confirmation. If it was a short notice reservation (within 45 days), I required payment in full BEFORE booking, since if a cancelation was required, it would throw the points into holding. For those reservations where the time frame allowed, 50% upon confirmation, and remaining balance would need to be paid in full 45 days before travel dates, or 15 days before my banking cut-off, which ever occured first. That allows me to cancel and bank the points if the renter does happen to default. It actually all went pretty smoothly. A couple of people paid for the full reservation (their choice) upon confirmation, for others I will send a reminder for the final payment. I was surprised how easy it is to receive funds via PayPal, even with the 3% +/- fee. The only thing, which really wasn't a problem for me, is a lot of people wanted one or two day reservations, to extend reservations they already had. Many owners don't want to deal with small reservations. I was only going to rent out 99 points, and it worked out fine, as I was able to rent out 98 points, and then just banked the last one. I got $17 pp.