Timeshare Trade Ins, or Timeshare Donations

Have you tried renting or selling your timeshare and have had no luck?

There is one other option you could consider. The option typically comes with no financial reward for you but it is on option that will remove your timeshare from your name and get you out from under those maintenance fees if you are not using the vacation weeks.

There are several companies that will accept your timeshare as a donation. You will transfer the title to them and then they will try to sell the timeshare and give the revenue towards a charitable foundation. Typically, this can include some sort of tax write off for you but in order for that to occur, you must make sure you are "donating your timeshare" and not "trading in your timeshare" because there is truly a difference.

Typically trading in your timeshare will happen while you are on a presentation to purchase another timeshare or a vacation club. The timeshare you are trading in will be used to reduce the purchase price of the new product. This trade in procedure is very similiar to the same idea of trading in your car to purchase a new one. If you wind up doing this process, you need to stay in touch with the transfer title company to ensure that the transfer is completed. Often people have reported that they thought they traded in a timeshare, but the following years maintenance fees arrived only to have the resort inform the owner that no such transfer occured. This catches many people paying an added and unexpected maintenance fee! In the long run, it is your responsibility to make sure that the transfer company contacts you and that there is paperwork and deeds being signed. The process should take approximately 6 to 12 weeks depending on the resort and its location. This process has no tax write offs.

A timeshare donation will be to an organization that will provide you with the paperwork needed to file for a tax write off. It will usually be a company or group that you yourself search for and contact. Before moving forward though, you need to verify and ask questions about the charity. The last thing you want to do is realize after it is too late that you literally gave away your timeshare with nothing in return at all, not even a tax write off!