The recent Dave Ramsey timeshare exit situation and an elderly aunt's time share "pickle" have prompted me to search and resurrect this dead thread. Other than not buying one in the first place, selling it (seems a stretch) or walking away, are there any new angles on getting out from under a timeshare? Her timeshare is in Mexico if that matters.

Gotta watch the John Oliver piece about them the other week. Total nightmare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd2bbHoVQSM

Best part of travel for me is meeting the local denizens and hearing their stories. One time we booked 3 nights in whistler (not our thing at all) and in whistler the locals are the uber drivers, the restaurant servers from chile, and of course the bitter time share owners.

My new hot tub friend was a 75 year old lady who bought a whistler time share in the 80s, supposed to be a great investment, great family time, skiing, etc. Id never actually met anyone who had purchased a time share so was interesting to hear the story of how she found herself today so damn angry at the management company.

Company wanted to redevelop, wanted the time shares out, kept raising fees… money to lawyers. Id always laughed about time share but its not so funny to hear a 40 year slow motion train wreck. At least she was otherwise wealthy from vancouver real estate.

I was just reading about that this morning. What a scumbag.

The radio ads touting they can help you get out of a timeshare convinced me to never consider buying one.

Been pitched timeshares more often than I like to remember and they just never made sense to me.

It always felt like paying for the privilege of paying for something.

I am in the same camp as Mo. I have mine at a place in Kissimmee which I have only stayed at once. I trade for really nice places all over the world. I paid $5 for it plus the legal cost to transfer it. Bought it from a couple who had enjoyed it for more than 20 years and they gave us great tips on what weeks to book to get the maximum trade value.

Whoever came up with the 'Time Share' concept must surely be enshrined in the Real Estate Hall of Fame. What a concept...sell the same piece of property to 25 different people at the same time. Pure genius!

Much like all real estate, it all depends on where you bought, when you bought, and what kind of fees are associated with it yearly as well as for subleasing or swapping, etc. It also depends on where you are in relation to it, and your life style.

Sister in law had one for ages in Ormond Beach (a mile or two N of Daytona for non-Floridians) and her yearly costs were about half of what a hotel room for a week went for (this was in early 90s when we joined her for a few days) and she got into it originally with a down payment that was about two weeks stay in a hotel at the time, and she actually got a few thousand when she sold it about 15 years ago.

Her "neighbors" at the beach had actually slowly but surely over a 20 year period bought, sold and swapped units in the place they were in so they ended up with a month from early April thru early May and again in mid October thru mid November. And they were fairly "local" being based in Jax....

We ended up flushing ours. I still remember getting sucked in by the pitch and the cheap champagne after we signed.