Maintenance fees and special assessments are no joke. They add up…
fast! These fees increase annually whether you use your timeshare or
not, and they have become so expensive that many people are now
reconsidering their timeshare ownership. While some owners only pay a
couple hundred dollars per year, some families have reported paying as
much as $1500 dollars or more for the supposed “upkeep” of their
property!
These are the kind of financial figures that scare most people away
from entering a timeshare contract, but people are usually unaware of
just how ridiculous these fees can get until it’s too late.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult to wade through the copious piles of
manure in a timeshare sales pitch to determine just exactly what your
annual costs will look like… until now.
Special Assessment Watch
In 2011, a new independent website was created to help track the
total dollar amount of maintenance fees and special assessments
collected in the United States annually. The site is called the
Timeshare Special Assessment Alert Network and can be accessed at
specialassessmentnetwork.com. The proposed mission statement of the site
is to “notify timeshare owners of special assessments and maintenance
fees in real time as we receive them.”
As of today, December 11th, the website’s “Year to Date
Total Fees Collected” meter (which is continually rolling upward like an
odometer) reads $46,500,000 with three weeks left to go in the year.
This is a figure made all the more shocking by the fact that only a
small percentage of timeshare owners have actually reported their fees
to the site. The total numbers are estimated to be well over $1 billion.
To put that figure in perspective, the gross domestic product of
Liberia barely topped the billion dollar mark last year!
Site Features
Below the staggering national collection meter, visitors can view the
most recently posted maintenance fees and special assessments for
various resorts, along with where they are located. These figures are
submitted by objective, unsolicited timeshare owners who are trying to
spread awareness relating to the timeshare crisis. In fact, Special
Assessment Watch validates the neutrality of their mission by including
flattering photos of the resorts and a brief write-up describing some of
the perks of each development.
The site is extremely user-friendly and offers interactive menus to
help you determine what resorts are charging what fees. At the top of
the page, you can scroll through a comprehensive list (there are
literally hundreds!) of timeshare developments to find the resort that
you’re looking for. Once you’ve discovered the resort you’re curious
about, you can examine the most recent maintenance fees, special
assessments, or both. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like many owners
have been contributing their special assessment figures yet, but the
site is still new and many people focus solely on their exorbitant
maintenance fees.
Below this list, the visitor has the opportunity to share their
annual fees with the site and a curious public. To do so, simply enter
the name of your timeshare resort, and the name of the city and the
state in which the resort is located. Below these informational boxes,
there’s a drop-down box for you to choose whether you want to submit
information regarding your maintenance fees or your special assessment
fees, the amount, and the date you submitted the information.
Finally, near the bottom right corner of the homepage, visitors can
quickly access the most expensive resorts in terms of special
assessments and maintenance fees. Unsurprisingly, Marriot and Wyndham
developments dominate the top of this list. Granted, these resorts are
absolutely beautiful and are located in prime vacation locales, but the
fees reported are jaw-dropping.
Finally!
From what I can tell, this is the first third-party site of its kind.
Special Assessment Watch maintains an honest, objective approach to one
of the more critical issues in the timeshare industry today. They do so
in the hopes that the site will, “Help educate helpless” and “prevent
someone from making an uneducated decision.”
Special Assessment Watch is doing potential and current timeshare
owners a valuable service by making them fully aware of the current fees
at hundreds of different resorts. If only the rest of the timeshare
industry would follow their lead by operating with more straight-forward
transparency, perhaps the current timeshare crisis wouldn’t exist. At
Newton Group Transfers, we applaud their efforts to educate potential
timeshare owners, and we intend to continue to follow our own core
values of leadership, honesty, and integrity to inform everyone of
potential alternative options.
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