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Comment by janj | Hacker News Reader

This is great. Maybe one day we'll see action on timeshares. I got one a long time ago that was impossible to get rid of. Fully paid for, Westgate told me it had a lot of value so I told them to just take it back, but they would't of course. I ended up just stopping all payments, went through a few years of harassing calls, and then done, nothing more. Still haunts me though, I'm afraid it could come back up with outstanding balance owed.

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My dad got a Westgate timeshare back in the '90s. I was there when he was conned. And even at the young age I knew the salesman was the sleeziest guy on Earth. He drove us around in their limo to impress us, showing us their property. The way he talked just felt slimy.

My mom recently told me they tried to book their week at the timeshare and were told they would have to pay $1,000 to do so. Because it's a premium week or whatever bullshit. It's absolutely insane this predatory company is allowed to continue. I'm going to be forced to deal with this fucking thing when he dies. That's the truly insane thing. It's treated as property, but it's not. It's a fucking subscription that you can't cancel. Ever. You own nothing.

By the way, depending on your state, you may have to officially file to not receive the timeshare and its obligations in your father's estate. And whoever is next in line to inherit has to do the same, on down the line until the state, I suppose.

Would love to see Westgate tell the state of Massachusetts that they are the legal owners of this timeshare, and owe for annual repairs.

I think it can. More scary though, when you die unless they take active action to refuse it, your kids or whoever your inheritance goes to gets it by default. With all the financial obligations.

Yeah, John Oliver just did a Last Week Tonight on Timeshares. He goes over that in the video. Also there are scam companies that exist that promise to take your money to help you exit your timeshare agreement, then disappear. So you get double-scammed. And somehow this is technically legal?

Link to the Last Week Tonight video: https://youtu.be/Bd2bbHoVQSM

I was contacted by those people and others, both threatening and claiming to want to help. I had a suspicion they were all affiliated with the parent scam company Westgate and so never considered dealing with any of them. Maybe they weren't related to Westgate but good to keep in mind anyone in this space is not to be trusted.

Why can't you create a corporation, have the corp buy it from you for $1, and then go bankrupt in a month or three?

You'd need to be careful about how you setup and run the corporation such that the veil can't be pierced. If a court got involved, I think they'd be nonplussed if the corporation was organized, acquired the property, and filed for bankruptcy within a couple of months.

Could this work? It could potentially help a very large number of people get out of these scams. Seems so obvious now that you point it out I imagine someone must've thought of this before.

I imagine the timeshare company has right of first refusal for transfers, or will be adding that to their contracts as soon as this is a thing.

Now, is it legal? Maybe, maybe not. But they will pretend it is until you take them to court, and they'll quickly settle if you agree not to tell anyone else.

A right of first refusal just means that they have the opportunity to buy the timeshare before you can sell it to anyone else. That would be a-ok for the customer, since either way the timeshare's off their hands.

Or maybe find people at end-of-life with no heirs that would buy it for a $1 in exchange for a donation to their charity of choice.

I guess if you inherit a timeshare you can just insist that it goes to a sibling. Or, even better, a step-sibling...

You can also tell probate court that you refuse the inheritance. You can't be forced to inherit something

You can, but there is specific paperwork you have to file and you have something like 90 days to do it. And then the next person in line has to, and the next.

Unless everyone is on the ball and actively refuses it, someone gets stuck with it.

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