Time-shares are fractional vacation ownership interests in a resort, a concept that has been around for the past 50 years.
There are about 1,590 fractional interest resorts in the United States with most resorts located in Florida, California and South Carolina.
It appears there are about 5 million owners in the United States.
This implies there are on the average 3,144 owners for each resort.
Typically owners made the purchase as an investment and a cost effective alternative to hotels.
Some owners love their time-share and want to pass it on to their loved ones.
Other owners loathe their time-share and want to give it away to avoid annual maintenance costs and to cut their losses.
Love it or loathe it an owner at some point in time will have to deal with how they own and the consequences of that ownership.
Owners have the right to occupy a resort property.
Purchasers are granted this occupancy right either as a "Time-share Estate" or as a "Time-share Use.
" Time-share Estate ownerships are granted by deed as in any other real estate transaction.
Change in title is done with a deed transfer.
Time-share Use ownerships are granted by contract and the owner has a license or membership interest in the resort but does not receive any ownership interest in real property.
Change in title for a Time-share Use is done with the resort management company.
Timeshare Estates and Time-share Uses are granted as either: single-site, multisite, or point-system.
Single-site time-shares are fairly straight forward.
The owner is granted a fractional ownership interest in a single time-share resort.
There may be an exchange program associated with time resort so the owner can exchange times with other owners, but this is separate from the actual ownership.
The multisite time-share takes the single-site concept and adds access to sister resorts through a somewhat complex reservation system.
Another variation to the multisite is no ownership at all in a specific resort, but access during a certain time period to several resorts under a contract that defines how the time period and location is determined.
A final variation to ownership is the point system.
Instead of a time period of ownership, the owner is granted a fixed number of points out of total points of ownership by all owners.
The more points the more value and more access.
The points granted appear on the sales contract and should appear on the deed.
Owners who want their loved ones to inherit the time-share need to plan ahead to avoid probate.
Ideally, ownership should be in the name of trust.
But if the owner does not have a trust, joint tenancy is an option.
To create a joint tenancy, the owner adds another person on title as a joint tenant.
The person added is the heir to receive the time-share on the death of the original owner.
In joint tenancy the person who dies has her or her ownership interest disappear and the survivor is the sole owner.
Normally adding a joint tenant in this manner is not a good idea.
The joint tenant's creditors and spouse have access to the property and the cooperation of the new joint tenant is needed for any sales or borrowing.
As a result, the owner gives up control.
But because of limited marketability and low dollar value the risk of loss may be outweighed by the ease of transfer.
If an owner is considering joint tenancy, this is definitely a time to first consult with legal counsel.
Owners who despise their time-share may want to find a greater fool to assume ownership and give it away.
The best method is with a quitclaim deed.
In a quitclaim deed the grantor does not make any promises on proper title, amount of debt, outstanding taxes or any other warranty and just conveys away ownership interest.