<p>A decade ago, my mom and another theater-loving girlfriend made an impulsive purchase of an elegant 1 BR/2BA hotel suite in Manhattan as a Timeshare with 3 days’ annual use. Perfect neighborhood, across from the Carnegie Deli – oops, I mean, Carnegie Hall. It can sleep up to 4 in 2 beds, one of which is the living room pullout sofa. They enjoyed it 3 days/year together.</p>
<p>As they’ve aged, much less enjoyment. And recently, instead of scheduling together, they take alternating years with their own child or a grandchild. On our side, at least, we don’t want our Mom to keep a timeshare “for us” as we have other housing answers when we visit NYC. My Brooklyn-residing son is still steamed that some NYC real estate guys hustled his grandma. He would have housed her, if only she’d asked!</p>
<p>When I’ve asked Mom about selling it, she claims both women would love to sell it (I’m not sure that’s so, but I’ll take Mom’s word). I doubt either one can afford to buy out the other’s half, since the only reason they felt they could afford it was both were splitting the cost of purchase. </p>
<p>I’m wondering:
-should we initiate a conversation with my Mom’s friend now or just wait until my Mom passes on <em>someday</em> (nothing imminent in her health profile)?<br>
is there an alternative to just returning it to the timeshare company (at a huge lose, I betcha)
Thanks for reading my long post.</p>
<p>That’s part of why I’m here, to gather ideas. </p>
<p>She has some dementia. We have to do a lot of things based on glimmers of what she tells us she wants, weighing out the times she disagrees with herself.</p>
<p>Last week, for example, my brother just sold her car as she can no longer drive safely. Now she can use that money to take taxis instead. That took many months of back-and-forthing.</p>
<p>Perhaps start by asking your mom if it would be okay for you to talk with her friend to see if she is on the same page and whether friend has any ideas. If both want to sell, that makes it easier.</p>
<p>I hate to say this, but my inlaws have 3 weeks of timeshare that they can’t give away…the maint. fees keep going up and they would love to get rid of them, but not worth anything now… sorry, hope your situation is different.</p>
<p>Clark Howard is a wise man (he belongs to our synagogue), and his website is very helpful. As others have said, unfortunately they are not easy to sell, though the location sounds divine. IMO the other elephant in the living room, as it were, is your mother’s cognitive capacity. How advanced is her dementia? Is she competent to sign a contract?</p>
<p>On all legal-financial decisions, we’re fortunate that my lawyer-brother, who resides in same small town, has only her best interests in mind. We all trust him beyond the moon. She’s in a gray area, but he’s able to figure out which things she can do, and in which areas he needs to take over. He meets with her, explains things numerous times, supervises every transaction. I think he gets her signature when needed, without abusing the relationship. He’s the best link in our situation right now, decent and moral.</p>
<p>Ah you are fortunate that your brother is an attorney. Does he also have POA to sign on her behalf? Any chance anyone in the friend’s family wants to buy out the other half? (I am guessing you’ve already considered this). Is the whole building a timeshare? Do they have a bulletin board or website or email distribution list you could advertise on?</p>
<p>Bro has POA. We haven’t been in touch at all with friend’s family for years, so I don’t know her landscape. The two women have drifted apart, and the friend is 10 years younger, so I understand this. I hadn’t actually considered whether her own children or grandchildren might want the half - so brainstorming helps here! Thanks. On the company’s website/bulletin board, I don’t know…again, how I appreciate these ideas.</p>
<p>Given what I’m reading on the websites provided here, timeshares are a real pain. We’d have to understand how each family views the maintenance fees. Perhaps that’s why people give timeshares away for nothing. And that feels like…a foreclosure! Fortunately, we’re not talking about anyone’s primary residence, and I don’t mean to jest about that kind of thing.</p>
<p>The building is half timeshare, half beautiful hotel. I don’t know if actually “half” so let’s just say: some of both.</p>
<p>The site used to have a bulletin board to sell timeshare - postings were cheap, like $15 or so. We impulsively brough a timeshare in the mid-80s and sold it 10 years later on TUG. On paper it was a huge loss, but when I spread out the loss & the maintenance fees over the number of vacations we took, it actually was not a horrible deal and enabled us to have better accomodations than we would have paid for out of pocket.</p>
<p>PS - you might be surprised to find out the NYC timeshares are valuable, given the cost of hotel rooms.</p>
<p>Maybe the other woman’s family would be willing to take the timeshare and assume the maintenance fees. Even if you got nothing for it, you would be done with the annual fees.</p>
<p>If you vam’t sell check the extended family. Someone may want it if willing to transfer at nominal cost instead of turning in to TS company. When my aunt wanted to get rid of hers for the same reason my sister 's daughter took it over for small transfer payment. Also you could check to see if you can donate to a charitable org for auctions…</p>
<p>Financially she is probably better off selling this at a loss–assuming that she doesn’t owe anything on this any longer. Is her overall financial status pretty healthy or is a Medicaid supplemented nursing home in the future? I would think that a phone call to this friend explaining the situation would be perfectly reasonable. You could get a feeling for where she is at in the process and go from there with your decisions. If the other woman wants to keep the timeshare, selling to her below cost might be a good plan. A lot of it depends on how much they paid and what the current “value” is though too.</p>