Residents of Melbourne, Florida, engage in a high volume of real estate transactions. Many of these transactions go well, and lead to development that directly benefits the community. Some of the transactions, however, do not go well, and those can result in real estate litigation. Transactions that go awry can include those for timeshares.
In one case, a 69-year-old woman and her husband signed a contract for a timeshare. The cost they incurred by doing so was $25,000. They had doubts and were reluctant to sign it, but were worn down by a sales pitch that went on for four hours.
When they got home, however, they talked with their children and knew that they had made a mistake. So, they called the company than had sold them the timeshare, Wyndham Vacation Ownership. They explained that they could not afford it and wanted out.
Instead, Wyndham just put them in a program that would, at some point down the line, let the couple sell the timeshare. That wasn’t what the couple wanted though. They wanted out completely.
An article, which referenced the couple, was then published in the Orlando Sentinel. Soon after it was published, Wyndham Vacation Ownership contacted the couple and told them that the timeshare contract could be canceled after all. Wyndham’s spokesperson said the couple became eligible for cancellation because they are now considered a hardship case.
Situations like this one can affect a lot of people. Around 6.9 percent of all United States households, 9.2 million total, own some kind of timeshare. Some timeshare companies have been accused of targeting elderly people and deceiving those elderly people about being able to sell timeshares back to the company. Wyndham was one of the companies accused, and wound up losing $20 million in a California court verdict last November. People who feel that they are victims of bad timeshare deals or other real estate transactions should talk with an attorney about their options.
Source: Orlando Sentinel, “Wyndham agrees to cancel ‘pushy’ timeshare deal,” Paul Brinkmann, July 07, 2017
