Buyer Beware

Imagine someone sending you a card and saying that they can offer you a brand new car at a great price. You just have to go sit in on the presentation and start a bit of paperwork.

You buy the car, but in order to be able to use that car, on top of the purchase price, you have to pay a yearly maintenance fee.

What you may not realize is that that maintenance fee is for the entirety of your lifetime.

It doesn’t matter if you drive the car or if it just sits in your garage, collecting dust.

Further, that maintenance fee increases throughout your lifetime.

Doubling, sometimes tripling in amount.

You realize you don’t want the car anymore, you’re not really driving the car, and quite frankly you see the car as a burden now due to the increasing maintenance fee.

So you put it up for sale.

That’s when you find out that there are hundreds and thousands of other people trying to sell the same types of car.

You may be lucky and be able to give the car away to someone in exchange for them taking over the maintenance fee, but it is very rare, if not impossible, for you to get back any of the money you initially put down on the car.

Which could be $10,000, $

20,000, or $30,000.

Knowing that, would you buy the car?

I don’t think anyone would say yes to that question.

However, thousands of people each year make that decision with timeshares.

They are rushed through a very well planned and written presentation.

They’re not given the full opportunity to look at every line of the paperwork before signing, in most cases.

They are given a very short window of time to cancel the contract, if they suffer buyers’ remorse.

Usually a week to 10 days after the contract is signed.

Each week, I get a call from a potential client or a current client whose family member has signed a contract with a timeshare.

I immediately asked them the date of the contract signing, and sometimes we can revoke the contract within that deadline.

If we cannot, then it is a long, hard struggle and fight to get out of the contract.

Some people fall prey to companies who promise to make attempts to get them out of their timeshare, but what they’re not revealing and explaining in full is that they will make attempts, but will not guarantee the cancellation of the contract.

During this time, the maintenance fees still have to be paid, plus a hefty fee for that attempt.

Don’t get me wrong. A lot of people love their timeshare.

But for every one person I speak to who loves the fact they have a timeshare, I speak to 10 more who regret buying one and would love to get out of the contracts.

So my advice today is this.:

If you receive an invitation to review the possibility of buying a timeshare with any company, talk to a lawyer first.

Let the lawyer review the contract with you before you sign anything or put any money down.

Do not commit without full knowledge of what you’re getting into.

You have the right to have your own attorney review that contract with you before you put a pen to that paper.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.