Post reply

Maintenance Fee went to collections (by KC):

leighannh10 wrote:

...person allowed a Westgate TS to go to foreclosure, still owing on the actual mortgage loan, and in the end he says it didn’t touch his credit at all. So, that’s promising. https://tugbbs.com/forums/index.php?threads/will-legal-action-help-me-get-rid-of-my-ts.246451/

If all we owe are MFs, then that’s not a true foreclosure, is it? Those are just unpaid fees. If by some chance it did hit our credit report as a foreclosure, surely I could dispute that and have it changed after providing proof that there was no mortgage owed. Don’t you think?

With all due respect , you don't seem to grasp (or perhaps are in denial about) the nature of foreclosure, which need not be associated with unpaid loans. Unpaid maintenenance fees are equally solid grounds for initiating foreclosure, even on a fully paid off deeded ownership.

Personally, I find that one lone claim you found of someone defaulting on a loan and encountering no negative credit report consequences extremely hard to believe, particularly with Westgate. David Siegel (Westgate CEO) keeps his lawyers very busy; Westgate has consistently demonstrated a healthy appetite for litigation. They even took a lower court decision against them all the way to the TN Supreme Court (where they still lost). Foreclosure is simple and easy; some states even now provide for non-judicial foreclosures, further streamlining the process.

The simple fact is that a deeded timeshare ownership is a form of real estate ownership, albeit owning only a very small portion. You pay real estate taxes (...you did formerly anyhow, when you were paying your fees; real estate taxes were included within your annual maintenance fee bills). Make no mistake, foreclosure on a deeded timeshare is most certainly a "true" foreclosure, absolutely no different in legal procedure than any other property foreclosure (except, of course, that home foreclosures usually also involve someone defaulting on a mortgage loan).

That said, I still believe that foreclosure on a fully paid off (no unpaid loan) timeshare for unpaid maintenance fees alone will not produce any negative credit report consequences for you. In my 35+ years of timeshare experience and observations, I have rarely heard or read of people claiming otherwise. Defaulting on a loan is another matter entirely however and is virtually certain to have negative credit report consequences, despite occasional (unsubstantiated) claims to the contrary.