Third party commercial renters

[Sandisw]

No, because the list of names has to be provided at the beginning of the UY, and after that only if there are changes.

Because the names have to be known in advance, renting to strangers is not possible, except for the few exceptions permitted.

ETA: I believe the true intention of DVC is that these points be used either personally or for family, and no one else. But I think a few exceptions to this per year would still allow some renting to strangers to occur, just not to the point where it could be profitable.

Actually, that is not true. The contract gives owners the specifc right to rent our points to whomever we want. We don't need DVC or DVD's approval to do it either...which means, they can't tell us not to rent.

Now, you are right that the purpose of DVC is for personal use and enoyment and not to make it into a business, but renting to strangers falls under the "personal use" membership....its having too many rentals over time that allows DVC to say its no longer a personal use membership.

The hard part with this is the word "profitable", isn't it? Even one rental a year will give an owner a profit. What DVC gets to decide is what level of profit owners of a membership are making that they want to say is now a 'business"....the even harder part is that as an owner, we can own as much as 8000 points...and that does apply to any and all memberships where the owner is a part of.

Even if only 10% of those are rented each year, meaning 90% are being used by the owner, that has the potential, in today's market of grossing the owner $16K....make that 20% and we are now at grossing $32K....

Now DVC can lower the threshold. While $32K is a lot of money (assume that they net half), but that membership is being used 80% of the time by the owner, and he/she is only renting out 20%, do we want DVC to say that the owner isn't using their points primiarly for personal use?

If the average owner has 500 points (making it up because I don't know), and they rent 20% of thier points, they will gross about $2K a year...

Of course, we don't know what or how DVC defines what a pattern of rental activity is but I certainly cant say that using 80% of your points every year should be defined as anything other than personal use, even if you are one of those high point owners have the ability to profit nicely.

I would be surprised if DVC decided to have different critieria for different levels of points owned...but then again, they certainly could.

 

[tx911]

Actually, that is not true. The contract gives owners the specifc right to rent our points to whomever we want. We don't need DVC or DVD's approval to do it either...which means, they can't tell us not to rent.

Now, you are right that the purpose of DVC is for personal use and enoyment and not to make it into a business, but renting to strangers falls under the "personal use" membership....its having too many rentals over time that allows DVC to say its no longer a personal use membership.

The hard part with this is the word "profitable", isn't it? Even one rental a year will give an owner a profit. What DVC gets to decide is what level of profit owners of a membership are making that they want to say is now a 'business"....the even harder part is that as an owner, we can own as much as 8000 points...and that does apply to any and all memberships where the owner is a part of.

Even if only 10% of those are rented each year, meaning 90% are being used by the owner, that has the potential, in today's market of grossing the owner $16K....make that 20% and we are now at grossing $32K....

Now DVC can lower the threshold. While $32K is a lot of money (assume that they net half), but that membership is being used 80% of the time by the owner, and he/she is only renting out 20%, do we want DVC to say that the owner isn't using their points primiarly for personal use?

If the average owner has 500 points (making it up because I don't know), and they rent 20% of thier points, they will gross about $2K a year...

Of course, we don't know what or how DVC defines what a pattern of rental activity is but I certainly cant say that using 80% of your points every year should be defined as anything other than personal use, even if you are one of those high point owners have the ability to profit nicely.

And, I would be surprised if DVC decided to have different critieria for different levels of points owned...but then again, they certainly could.

Could they not just limit use by “strangers” to a certain percentage of the total points owned?
I would think that would address a huge part of the problem.

 

[Chuck S]

Could they not just limit use by “strangers” to a certain percentage of the total points owned?
I would think that would address a huge part of the problem.

I don't know, I kind of doubt it would be practical, even if they could. Then you'd get back into what if people can only rent 20% of their points, they are beyond their banking window, find they can not go to Disney,m but they have an existing reservation that uses 50% of their annual points? You'd also be looking at large point owners of several thousand points probably able to rent out even more point than the 20 reservation limit we have now, And a person with 100 points able only to rent out 2 nights per year (20 Points)

 

[BuzzLightyr]

I’m not saying that large point owners are using third party brokers to rent for them, I’m saying they are one and the same entity.

Exactly. The problem isn't some human renting out their own points. The problem is commercial companies that own thousands of points that use bots to book up the cheapest studios.

Right now there is plenty of home resort availability at the 11 month mark but there are specific room types which have been targeted by commercial bots.

Renting should be allowed. Use of rental brokers should be allowed. Investors who act like reits with their own IT team to book rooms via a script has to be viewed as commercial.

 

[Sandisw]

Could they not just limit use by “strangers” to a certain percentage of the total points owned?
I would think that would address a huge part of the problem.

The contract is filled with information regarding renting, and no where does it define renter. It does say that we don't need DVD's approval to rent, and one could argue that if they are telling you "who" you can rent to, they are indirectly requiring approval. Yes, you can rent to your best friend but no you can not rent to someone you don't know.

Going back to the contract, its important to remember that what DVC gets to do is stop someone from turning their membership into a commercial entity....how you rent, who you rent to, and what you charge (which DVC can't dictate that either....it says owner get to set their own terms and conditions) is up to the owner.

In the RIV POS, it gives us some potential quailifiers DVC can use to find an owner is using the membership outside personal use, and it includes "frequent use by others' who are not the owner or the owners family. Since that qualifies that "others" are not the owner or the owners family, its pretty easy to see the intent is everyone else.

So, they can't just say 'no strangers"...plus that would be impossible to enforce... Now, they can certainly decide how many reservations a year in the names of others who are not your family, or you, count as "frequent" and they could set that bar very low (if they want) but it can't be 0.

Of course, DVC can techincally do whatever they want, even if it violates the contract, and force owners to fight them...but I don't believe DVC would do that...they will use reasonable definitions to define commercial enterprise and if anything, it will be a much broader defintiion than some might like to see.

Hence, why there are owners who are frustrated with the current state of the rental market.

 

[pianomanzano]

I think the optimal solution is guest certificates. I think the previous discussions over complicate the potential solution. Each membership gets two free ones per year. After that, any reservations where the primary is not the owner or an associate member, the reservation gets assessed a fee for the guest certificate (say $49 to start), the value of which goes up by $50 each successive reservation not in the owner or associate member’s name for the remainder of the UY.

It certainly won’t solve everything and potentially create new problems, but it’s an easy way for DVC get at the commercial renters that have long lists of single night reservations available for rent. It’ll allow for circumstances where owners need to rent out an upcoming stay they can no longer make due to life events. It’ll shift rentals towards longer stays and makes it cost prohibitive to rent out multiple single-night stays. DVC could use the money to get better snacks and perhaps even alcohol for the lounges. @DonMacGregor stays entertained from the ensuing drama of people complaining about only getting two certificates or why there’s still no availability and start to blame walking reservations.

 

[JackosinDIS]

I have recently read all three of my POS statements, plus the multi-site POS and I have found nothing in there that differentiates renting vs. spec renting, nor have I found anything that even seems like DVC can institute a rule to differentiate them.

If someone else sees something along those lines, it would be awesome to see it!!!

I think the new CFW language tried to differentiate between renting and spec renting. At least that was the speculation on the thread when the new POS came out for that resort. From memory, it referred to a pattern of renting ‘confirmed reservations’.

 

[Chuck S]

I think the optimal solution is guest certificates. I think the previous discussions over complicate the potential solution. Each membership gets two free ones per year. After that, any reservations where the primary is not the owner or an associate member, the reservation gets assessed a fee for the guest certificate (say $49 to start), the value of which goes up by $50 each successive reservation not in the owner or associate member’s name for the remainder of the UY.

It certainly won’t solve everything and potentially create new problems, but it’s an easy way for DVC get at the commercial renters that have long lists of single night reservations available for rent. It’ll allow for circumstances where owners need to rent out an upcoming stay they can no longer make due to life events. It’ll shift rentals towards longer stays and makes it cost prohibitive to rent out multiple single-night stays. DVC could use the money to get better snacks and perhaps even alcohol for the lounges. @DonMacGregor stays entertained from the ensuing drama of people complaining about only getting two certificates or why there’s still no availability and start to blame walking reservations.

Nope, I only have 345 points, and even so, I sometimes get three units more than once a year just fo rmyself, family and friends. And the contracts don't say ANYTING about restrictions on how many rooms you can use for friends and family, or that some sort of special pass would be required for them. or an extra charge is assessed. This would be a substantial change to how the DVC was presented upon the product that was purchased, and would likely not make it through legal review if it went to arbitration.

In the contracts, DVC has the right to define "commercial renting." That is what they have done. It is now up to them to enforce (or not) those rules in a manner compliant with the POS.

 

[dioxide45]

Nope, I only have 345 points, and even so, I sometimes get three units more than once a year just fo rmyself, family and friends. And the contracts don't say ANYTING about restrictions on how many rooms you can use for friends and family, or that some sort of special pass would be required for them. or an extra charge is assessed. This would be a substantial change to how the DVC was presented upon the product that was purchased, and would likely not make it through legal review if it went to arbitration.

But doesn't the POS or other documents give DVC the ability to change it with or without notice? There are many timeshare systems out there that started out with no fee guest name changes and later added a fee.

 

[GoingSince1990]

Literally every “solution” that has been suggested so far would result in vastly more complaints from members than we are seeing now about the “problem” of points rentals. “OMG I forgot to include Aunt Edna in the list of family members and friends I have to send to DVC every two years and now I can’t make a reservation for her- what can I do?”

 

[Chuck S]

But doesn't the POS or other documents give DVC the ability to change it with or without notice? There are many timeshare systems out there that started out with no fee guest name changes and later added a fee.

Was the right to charge an extra fee for guests of their owners specifically in the POS at the beginning, so all they did was implement it at a later date? Kind of like how the currently unused lottery system for busy seasons is sitting dormant in our DVC POS, but it is still an option?

 

[Sandisw]

I think the new CFW language tried to differentiate between renting and spec renting. At least that was the speculation on the thread when the new POS came out for that resort. From memory, it referred to a pattern of renting ‘confirmed reservations’.

I actually asked my guide to send me copy of the CFW POS even though I didn’t think I would be buying so I just reviewed that.

It does not use that word but there a few things of note.

The first is related to owning a total of 8000 points…they made it more specific… “for the purpose of determining vacation totals complied, no separation shall be made between between one person and another person, entinty, business, etc. if that person has a shared interest”. RIV is more general to imply it’s across all memberships…same intent, but updated.

Since that 8000 number is in the newest resort, we can now say for a fact that DVD has not changed that language, and that any owner, no matter how many memberships or businesses they are part of can legally own 8000 points to use to make reservations.

The second is that says, which I have found in my RIV POS is stated “ no owner may direct rent, exchange, or otherwise use their Vacation home interest without making a prior reservation of an available vacation home”.

Obviously, this implies that what we are renting is an actual reservation and not our deeded interest…ie: I can’t charge someone $5k a year to lease my membership,

But it does seem to support that there is no difference in terms of renting a reservation based on when the renter was secured, or whose name is on the reservation from the start..

Both RIV and CFW do both give more specific examples than previous POS in defining what could be used to determine you are using your interest for commercial purposes…they used the words “reserved” reservation…a pattern of rental activity of reserved reservations, frequent use of reserved reservations by others etc,,

I wonder if that word “reserved” is what people are referring to? Given the first part that says you can’t rent until you make a prior reservation, this word may simply have been used to stay consistent with the prior language.

My opinion is that is the likely reason, but others may interpret “reserved” to be the same as “confirmed”. Only DVC can answer that, so I will add that to my list of clarifications needed.

 

[mistysue]

Literally every “solution” that has been suggested so far would result in vastly more complaints from members than we are seeing now about the “problem” of points rentals. “OMG I forgot to include Aunt Edna in the list of family members and friends I have to send to DVC every two years and now I can’t make a reservation for her- what can I do?”

I don't think asking non-members at check in if they were renting or a guest of a friend/relative would cause a spike in complaints.

 

[lowlight]

Literally every “solution” that has been suggested so far would result in vastly more complaints from members than we are seeing now about the “problem” of points rentals. “OMG I forgot to include Aunt Edna in the list of family members and friends I have to send to DVC every two years and now I can’t make a reservation for her- what can I do?”

That was only one suggestion by one person. Sandi had some good suggestions, as did a few others. If you don’t agree that change is necessary, you likely won’t agree with any solutions.

 

[Sandisw]

But doesn't the POS or other documents give DVC the ability to change it with or without notice? There are many timeshare systems out there that started out with no fee guest name changes and later added a fee.

Yes and no, DVC has the sole right to decide what the rules are when it comes to defining a membership…or vacation ownership interest…for personal use and commercial use.

However, the contract gives the owner the right to set all terms for rentals and so requiring owners to charge the renter a fee could be seen by some…it would be by me…as DVC setting the terms.

Now, is it possible for them to legally require owners to accept that there is a fee applied for when anyone but the legal owners are using it? Maybe but unlikely, because if DVC is requiring a fee to use it, then the fee should be the owners.

BVTC can institute a fee for owners to trade into the other resorts, since you have no deeded interest in those resorts, so that could be a work… but that would apply to even owners. It certainly would have ann impact the rental market in some way. Those with popular resorts, renting at their home resort, would end up winders.

I think the big thing that needs to be considered is the purpose of DVC, and that is for personal enjoyment….and that any and all rules that make it more difficult for owners who don’t rent, but use it for themselves and family and friends, is not going to go over well for the vast majority of owners,

I am not convinced DVC wants that either. I have no idea what a good balance is that would be supported by the bulk of owners…that’s up to DVC to figure out.

ETA: the glaring omission right now, from all contracts, and even this discussion, if that 2007 policy is no longer still in effect, is a consequence if one is found to be violating the rules of personal use….

 

[GoingSince1990]

That was only one suggestion by one person. Sandi had some good suggestions, as did a few others. If you don’t agree that change is necessary, you likely won’t agree with any solutions.

The actual problem is simply that some rooms are underpriced in terms of points per night and get snapped up VERY quickly. And this will continue regardless of any “crackdown” on rentals, whether it involves guest certificates, having to send Disney a list of all of your family and friends, or anything else. If Disney doesn’t rebalance the points chart to increase the cost of rooms currently perceived as irresistible bargains, no amount of tinkering with rental rules is going to make a noticeable difference to their availability.

 

[CWTC]

If Disney doesn’t rebalance the points chart to increase the cost of rooms currently perceived as irresistible bargains, no amount of tinkering with rental rules is going to make a noticeable difference to their availability.

In my opinion the charts shouldn’t be rebalanced because rooms with better views should be worth more points than a non view or value room. An AKL value is objectively a smaller room than an AKL standard and an AKL Savannah view has a view. I feel the same way when people say 1 bedroom points should be more equivalent to studios: a 1 br even though it may sleep the same amount of people as a studio but comes with more amenities and space. It should be priced higher than a studio.

Although I agree that this rental issue appears to be an issue (how significant is not wholly clear to me), I think another component of the problem is people out there with small contracts who are understandably trying to stretch their points and who are battling it out at 8am for a small inventory of rooms.

 

[dioxide45]

However, the contract gives the owner the right to set all terms for rentals and so requiring owners to charge the renter a fee could be seen by some…it would be by me…as DVC setting the terms.

But it wouldn't be a fee to the renter. It would be a fee to the owner for DVC to add a guest name. How the owner passes that fee on to a renter is up to the owner. They wouldn't be requiring the owner to charge the renter a fee.

 

[dioxide45]

In my opinion the charts shouldn’t be rebalanced because rooms with better views should be worth more points than a non view or value room. An AKL value is objectively a smaller room than an AKL standard and an AKL Savannah view has a view. I feel the same way when people say 1 bedroom points should be more equivalent to studios: a 1 br even though it may sleep the same amount of people as a studio but comes with more amenities and space. It should be priced higher than a studio.

Certainly larger rooms should cost more points. I don't think it would be realistic that a studio costs the same as a 1BR. If that were the case then it would just be the 1BR units that are hard to reserve instead of the studios. I think what some are saying is that the disparity between a 1BR and a studio that have the same occupancy could be less than it is today. Right now someone doesn't want to spend 100% more points to book a 1BR over a studio, but perhaps they would be willing to spend 25-50% more, which could help even out demand.

 

[Sandisw]

In my opinion the charts shouldn’t be rebalanced because rooms with better views should be worth more points than a non view or value room. An AKL value is objectively a smaller room than an AKL standard and an AKL Savannah view has a view. I feel the same way when people say 1 bedroom points should be more equivalent to studios: a 1 br even though it may sleep the same amount of people as a studio but comes with more amenities and space. It should be priced higher than a studio.

Although I agree that this rental issue appears to be an issue (how significant is not wholly clear to me), I think another component of the problem is people out there with small contracts who are understandably trying to stretch their points and who are battling it out at 8am for a small inventory of rooms.

Which is why I think it’s tough to tease this topic out because some things like broker being allowed to maintain a website to rent their own points, no matter how many memberships those points are on is completely different situation than being upset that owners, whether they are brokers or not, are snatching up hard to get rooms,

There is absolutey nothing I can see that DVC can do, legally, that they can tell any owner they can’t rent a specific room type.

Even if they said you can’t advertise on the internet…meaning no brokers, no DIS, not FB, no Redweek, etc., if I reserve. A VGF SV studio for 5 nights ever December and put up a flyer at school to find a renter, that is allowed.

So, struggle with hard to get rooms may be impacted by rentals. Putting in stricter rules for personal use vs. commercial use is not going to stop, nor can it from the average owner from booking and renting rooms in high demand.

There is simply no way DVC is going to ever say that it is reasonable to define using a membership or your ownership interest as commercial entity because you rented one reservation a year in a specific type of room.