Everyone who owns a timeshare has to pay maintenance fees and while no one likes to have to hand over their cash, they are an essential factor in the successful running and upkeep of your investment.
What do Maintenance fees cover?
Maintenance fees are intended to pay for repairs and the upkeep of both the resort facilities and your timeshare property. For example, a proportion of your maintenance fees will cover pool maintenance, the spa, common areas and club houses. With regards to your actual apartment, the fees help maintain the quality of your experience when you visit your investment, making sure that any broken utensils, appliances or furniture are replaced. Maintenance fees also include the cleaning services and general repairs of your property.
What happens if I don’t pay my maintenance fees?
To protect all owners, it is a legal requirement that timeshare owners pay their maintenance fees every year, even if you cannot make use of your timeshare. You may be subject to legal proceedings if you stop making payments so if you are ever in doubt, contact your operator or lend your timeshare to a family member or friend.
When you buy a timeshare, you have to keep in mind you are buying a piece of property, which means that you have to take charge of the up-keep of your shared ownership. Timeshare maintenance fees represent the resort global operating costs, and they are spread among timeshare owners. The operating costs vary mainly according to the size of the resort and the number of owners each unit has.
Timeshares need to be looked up as a purchase and not an investment. Regardless of how timeshares are presented, they don´t perform as well as a house or stock investment. If you look around the resale market for timeshares on websites like EBay, Redweek, or TUGBBS will find that you can buy a timeshare for far less money than what the first owner purchased it for.