legal rights in a condo that is no longer doing timeshares

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

A 30 year old condo would have been organized before the Uniform Condominium Act. There are two groups of preceding state statutes, and your resort would have been organized under one of them. Most states have statutes based on the HUD Model Condominium Act. A few have laws based on the Puerto Rico condo statutes. I am familiar with the HUD Model Act as that is what the older resorts in North Carolina are based on. There will be a date in your Declaration of Covenants on which there has to be a vote on whether to continue as a timeshare. Since the letter did not reference this, I would guess that this date is not immediately approaching. Other that a somewhat less draconian supermajority in the event of substantial destruction of the property, which is not indicated here, to close out the timeshare requires unanimous consent. That is virtually impossible to obtain. One wonders if those behind this scheme have sought legal advice. The haphazard nature of the letter does not sound like it. Who sent the letter out? The HOA board? Is the developer still in control? Someone needs to call a membership meeting on this, and someone needs to get some legal advice. Texas may have statutues based on the Puerto Rico condo laws or they may have put in some local amendment to the HUD Model Act, but it does not sound like whoever is driving this train knows what they are doing.

[wandering gnome Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wandering gnome]

Since you would use the studio in corpus as an exchange timeshare. You might want to see what timeshares near you are selling for on ebay and use the $500 to buy a replacement timeshare. If you click on Advanced Search you can see what they have sold for.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Just because you own a studio does not mean that's all you can trade for.

We have gotten only one that I can remember in 120-plus exchanges.

Just because you own a 2-bedroom, does not mean you will get at least a 2-bedroom. If you search for at least that, you may get nothing.

I just did a search with three studios deposited. Off 122 units available, only 9 were studios or hotel units.

So, we can get bigger units . . . in places we really don't wanna go . . . (we get bigger units wherever we go).

[Hoc Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Hoc]

You probably are a joint tenant with a 1/50 ownership in the condo. Without the timeshare rules, a joint tenant may use the condo, or force a partition of ownership, which in this case essentially means forcing a sale of it on the open market and receiving 1/50th of the proceeds, less selling and closing costs. Other than that, your rights are to take what they offer.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

You probably are a joint tenant with a 1/50 ownership in the condo. Without the timeshare rules, a joint tenant may use the condo, or force a partition of ownership, which in this case essentially means forcing a sale of it on the open market and receiving 1/50th of the proceeds, less selling and closing costs. Other than that, your rights are to take what they offer.

The term you are seeking is ''undivided interest'' rather than ''joint tenant''. You don't get rid of the timeshare rules to get to that point unless the condominium is dissolved, and then the likely result would be a tiny fractional interest in the entire resort, not an interest in just one unit, because dissolving the condominium, the only way to dissolve the timeshare rules, dissolves everything. Most importantly, this group that sent out the letter cannot just arbitrarily decide that they are going to get rid of timesharing at the resort. There is a legal process that has to be followed which requires a vote. The letter referred to may be a gambit to stampede some owners and get a leg up on the vote. There is only a narrowly specified window when this may be done by majority vote, and if that were coming up the letter would probably have referenced it, which it did not. All other times a supermajority is required. And if Texas uses statutes based on the HUD model act (and odds strongly favor that) which is unmodified (again odds strongly favor that), then it takes unanimous consent.

If the entire resort ends up being sold, $500 may be only a fraction of what your interest may be worth. However, given the likely need for a unanimous vote, the liklihood of the timeshare going anywhere is small.

However, from a personal standpoint, the overall market on timeshare resale is down somewhat right now, and the bargain basement part that is eBay is way down. The $500 they are offering may get you a much better trader if that is what you want. If you really want to use at that resort, then you may want to hold on and start asking some pointed legal question of those driving the buyout bus.