FAQ

A Resale with regards to timeshare is a week that has been previously sold. If an owner has purchased a timeshare or vacation club membership from a developer and no longer wishes to retain their ownership as outlined within their agreement, they have a number of options available to them. One of these options is to sell their ownership, hence the term Resale.

For example the resale of Marriott Vacation Club ownership; Thousands of people all over the world make the intelligent financial decision to buy a timeshare via the private resales market as the savings are substantial with up to 85% off the upfront cost.

Enjoy quality holidays at affordable prices!

• You have priority Home Resort reservation in your Season
• You have the option to reserve you Home Resort booking in your season 12 months in advance or 13 months, when booking consecutive or concurrent weeks for multiple week members
• You can exchange into 3000 worldwide resorts through Interval International
• You have a 24 day priority window on exchanges to all Marriott Vacation Club resorts via Interval International!
• You can have unlimited Interval International Getaways (including the Marriott Vacation Club resorts) as an Interval International Member

Owning a timeshare in a luxury resort such as a Marriott Vacation Club resort is far cheaper in the long run than renting your holidays. A typical 2 bedroom school holiday week in June in Marriott’s Marbella Beach resort would cost in the region of €2500 for 7 nights when booking on the internet. An average gold season 7 nights maintenance fee is €1100 saving around €1400 per 7 nights.

Most members will cover the initial resales membership cost within the first 5 years of joining and will still own the asset for years to come, which can of course be resold, potentially at a similar price to the original resale purchase price.

Additional nights are available at reduced rates through Interval International Getaways with up to 85% off in over 3000 resorts for Interval International Members and their guests.

One of the main reasons for resale weeks being available at a lower price than resort/developer prices is due to the costs of marketing and sales programmes incurred by the resort/developer.

Resort sales and marketing is very expensive compared to resales marketing, typically it is known within the industry that at least 50% of the initial price of a timeshare purchased from a resort is allocated to sales, marketing and administration costs.

When you purchase a resale you will pay the current market price depending on current market trends for that property.

Additionally, in some cases, timeshare owners are happy to receive less than they paid originally because they have had their ownership for many years and enjoyed many memorable holidays and achieved good value for money from their ownership.

Absolutely not!

It makes no difference at all if you purchase a timeshare from a friend, a relative, a broker, a resales company, or the timeshare representative for the resort/brand.

There is no preference given to owners booking or exchanging for those that purchased at the full price directly, over and above owners of resale ownership.

In order to convince you to pay the full price it may be suggested by a sales representative that you will be treated less than professionally by Owner Service, be assured that most certainly is not the case. Owner Services deal professionally with all owners no matter where or how they purchased their weeks.

When purchasing a resale you are simply taking over an existing timeshare membership. You are not buying a copy product or an inferior membership as some salespeople will to try to make you believe.

The terms Silver, Gold and Platinum, in general refer to the seasons of the year in the timeshare resort.

They are usually designated as Silver for low season, Gold for mid season and Platinum for high season.

Maintenance fees are the annual charges which you pay when you own a timeshare interest. The annual maintenance fees, are the owner’s assurance for the upkeep of the resort in which they own. The fees are usually billed by the management company of the resort in which the owner owns the timeshare interest, or by the owner’s committee. Maintenance fees are generally evaluated by the number of units and weeks at any one given resort, coupled with the common areas, facilities and operating costs.

Maintenance fees will vary depending on unit size, resort amenities and other determining factors.

An exchange company such as Interval International, (I.I.) allows an owner of a timeshare interest, to exchange (swap) their timeshare for another within their network of resorts worldwide.

Essentially the exchange company is a timeshare bank, you deposit your week at one location, and take the weeks holiday at a different time of the year (season) and/or a different location worldwide.

Interval International is the exchange company with which Marriott Vacation Club is affiliated to facilitate owners of Marriott Vacation Club timeshares to exchange to other resorts worldwide. Other luxury timeshare brands are also affiliated with Interval International, such as Starwood, Hilton Grand Vacations Club and De Vere Seasonal Ownership.

We can easily register you as a new member of Interval International.

Whether you have purchased a resale ownership, at an up to 70% lower price, or purchased directly from Marriott Vacation Club at the full price, all exchanges via Interval International are processed in exactly the same way. It does not make any difference to your wide number of options for exchange, whether you are the original owner or the owner of a timeshare resale ownership.

One of the main attractions for Interval International members are the “Getaway” offers, these are extra holiday weeks which you, as member, can purchase at very low prices. As a purchaser of a resale ownership (for a lower price) you see and have access to exactly the same Getaways, including stays at Marriott Vacation Club resorts, and other luxury brand timeshare resorts, as a direct purchaser from a resort/developer.

Exchanging via Interval International carries an administration fee per week to exchange into over 3000 worldwide properties.

Destination/Vacation Club Points Option enrollment is something we recommend to Marriott Vacation Club owners with 4 weeks or more that generally do not use their home resorts, mainly want to stay in Marriott Vacation Clubs only and take the majority of their holidays in America.

If you are purchasing a Marriott Vacation Club European resort timeshare directly from Marriott Vacation Club currently the weeks will be enrolled automatically at no enrollment charge.

Another way to enrol for free is if you purchase another Marriott Vacation Club timeshare week in Europe or Destination Points in America of similar/equivalent value, in terms of number of Destination Points, directly with Marriott Vacation Club, as a purchase incentive to pay the full price they may enrol, subject to terms and conditions, all of your existing portfolio including Resales.

For owners of timeshare in Marriott Vacation Clubs it is also possible to enrol the timeshare week(s) into the Destination Points Program Option with a one off payment for enrollment of $2595 plus vat. This has to be done directly with Marriott Vacation Club and is subject to terms and conditions.

After the enrollment there is an annual fee currently around $195 plus VAT to $260 plus VAT termed “club dues” which you will have to pay to be able to continue the Destination Points Option even if you do not actually use the option that year.

Destination/Vacation Club Points were introduced by Marriott Vacation Club in 2010 for members purchasing timeshare property in perpetuity in America. Instead of owning a weekly share in an apartment or townhouse in a specific resort, you own DPI points in a property trust. These points can be used to book individual nights, subject to availability, in the Marriott Vacation Club resorts without the need to exchange via Interval International.

For European timeshare owners you can only enrol your timeshare week(s) to take an amount of Destination/Vacation Club Points, determined by the unit type and season owned, to spend as an option in any given year.

At present you cannot just purchase Destination/Vacation Club Points in Europe, therefore in Europe you can only own weeks in the 4 European Marriott Vacation Club resorts.

Like for like comparisons generally show that from ownership in European resort you will need more Destination/Vacation Club Points to achieve the same holiday you can get when exchanging your week. That being the case in most comparisons the majority of European members choose not to enrol into the Destinations Points Program option and continue to exchange into the 55 Marriott Vacation Club resorts as well as the 3000 worldwide resorts with Interval International. It remains a very simple transaction with Interval International as you simply can exchange 7 nights for 7 nights into any size apartment, any resort, at any time of year that is available for a small administration fee.

For those who prefer to holiday more in Europe other than Marbella, Mallorca or Paris the option is to exchange via Interval International as Marriott Vacation Club only have 4 European resorts.

Anyone can join the Marriott Bonvoy program for free, however the option to trade timeshare weeks for Marriott Bonvoy is only transferable, when selling ownership on, if you are related to the current owner (seller). Those who want to stay in Marriott hotels can of course pay cash, as the cost of the maintenance fee for a week, in many circumstances, only gives a similar or less value in Marriott Bonvoy Points. After all, if you have saved up to 85% off the cost of the membership you may find that having the option to trade for Marriott Bonvoy Points is not so important.

We have found that many members who own a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment which sleeps 6 or 8 people in Marriott Vacation Club resorts are not so keen to swap the 7 nights in an apartment to have an average of 3/4 nights for 2 people in an hotel room at a Category 6 Marriott hotel.

As an owner of a Marriott Vacation Club resale ownership you can of course still be a Marriott Bonvoy member for free, still have a Marriott Bonvoy credit card and still collect Marriott Bonvoy points when you spend money in Marriott hotels/resorts and when paying the annual maintenance fee using a Marriott Bonvoy credit card. You just cannot trade your timeshare week into Marriott Bonvoy points. As a Marriott Bonvoy member you can buy Marriott Bonvoy points each year for around $625 for 50,000 points. Another good way of collecting Marriott Bonvoy Points is by having a Marriott Rewards Credit Card.

If you really value having the Marriott Bonvoy Points option included in your Marriott Vacation Club timeshare membership then we advise that you purchase directly from Marriott Vacation Club at www.marriottvacationclub.eu and pay the full price for the ownership.

If you have a timeshare ownership and are unable to use it in a given year, you are able to gift it to a family member or friend by way of a guest certificate.

You will need to contact your home resort to provide the information they require to ensure the guest using your ownership is expected on arrival in that week.

If you would like to rent the timeshare that you are purchasing, it is very simple to organise. There are a few ways that you can find a rental for your ownership, which are as follows:

• you can obtain the renter yourself, maybe a family member or friend;
• you can advertise through the media and complete the paperwork yourself;
• you could use a rental company to organise everything, including the necessary paperwork.

In most cases renting your timeshare week will be very similar to gifting it to a friend or family member. You will need to notify your home resort that a guest will be arriving and using your timeshare ownership.

If you use a timeshare rental company like Fab then we will organise all necessary paperwork for you.

The length of the ownership you purchase will depend on resort in which you purchase. For example Marriott’s Playa Andaluza ownership is until 2052, Marriott’s Marbella Beach Resort until 2076, Marriott’s Club son Antem Mallorca until 2078 and Marriott’s V´lle de France Paris until 2081.

A timeshare ownership is priced very similarly both from a timeshare resort to a timeshare resale. The prices are usually determined according to the time of year (season) being purchased, the size of accommodation, unit facilities, resort amenities and location of the resort.

Resorts in which demand is high will hold a higher price both at the resort and on resale, and the resorts which have more inventory to sell will be available at a lower price again in both cases.

It is impossible for us to do a transfer of an ownership with any outstanding debt on it.

Before the timeshare company will even issue any transfer documentation the ownership must be debt free, with the maintenance fee payments current.

Resort sales people may implicate this as a reason not to buy a resale ownership but to instead buy a membership at full price, be reassured this is not the case.

The money you pay for the resale timeshare is always held in an escrow account with Barclay Bank and will not be released to the seller until the completion of the transfer is confirmed, therefore you have no risk.

Hutchinson Trustees Ltd
With over 30 years of experience in the shared leisure industry, Hutchinson Trustees Ltd. (Hutchinson) has consistently been the choice of key industry developers and amongst its portfolio of clients includes many leading brands worldwide.
Hutchinson has unparalleled experience in operating not only in the EU member states, but also Asia and the Far East. The company is proud of its ability to adapt its modus operandi to working with resort developments being sold in over fifty countries worldwide and the intricacies of the various legal systems operating therein, protecting the rights of use of more than eighty thousand shared leisure users.The Company´s UK Head Office is based in Surrey, UK and also has representative offices in India, Thailand and China form where it continues to ensure that it leads the shared leisure industry with its commitment to Service & Security – core values that it extends to all of its clients, no matter where in the world they may be.
Hutchinson’s Stakeholder Services, eliminates risks and offers the advantage that the purchaser is safe in the knowledge that their funds are being held by an independent third party in a “client escrow account” until such time as the transfer of ownership is complete and ensures that sellers receive their funds.
Further details can be found on www.hutchinsontrustees.com