So you’ve tried every possible idea you can think of to sell your timeshare. You’ve tried everything short of timeshare resale companies to doing a buy back option through your resort and nothing seems to work. You are at the end of your rope and you just want to rid yourself of this retched timeshare.
In this article I’m going show you another option, I’m going to show you how to donate your timeshare to charity and along the way I’m going to give the good and bad points as well as where to donate it to for the best results.
Benefits To Donating Your Timeshare
First off, when it comes to donating your timeshare one of the big benefits is that the process can be fairly painless and easy to do. All you have to do is sign a few papers and it’s gone. Face it, it takes a lot of will power to sell a timeshare these days simply because many people are just not buying and by donating it you will avoid a lot of these hassles.
Back when I was first looking to sell my timeshare I had no idea where to even start, where to find a buyer, or even what forms I needed in order to sell it. I tried for 2 years to sell my timeshare on my own and had no luck at all. However by donating your timeshare to charity the process becomes fairly simple. ( I’ll explain this later in the article.)
Secondly, by donating your timeshare it allows you the opportunity to get a tax write off. For example, if your timeshare is valued at $4500 and you’ve earned a total taxable income of $50,000 it would bring your total taxable income down to $45,500.
Finally, when you donate your timeshare you won’t have to hassle with all the extra fees that you might have to pay when you sell your timeshare yourself.
Disadvantages To Donating Your Timeshare
So now that we know donating your timeshare to a charity can have some great benefits you should also know that their can be some steep disadvantages. First off, you cannot donate your timeshare to a charity unless it is completely paid off. The reason for this is because charities want to sell your timeshare to earn money for their organization not get stuck with your debt.
Secondly, in order get a tax deduction for your timeshare it needs to be an itemized deduction which can be tough depending on your situation. On top of that if want to claim a value higher than $5000 for your timeshare you will be required to get an appraisal and the typical cost will run around $500 and higher. This can be even a bigger pain in the butt if your timeshare is located in a different country to boot.
Finally, the last thing you need to understand is that a charitable organization is not going to accept your timeshare just because you have have one to get rid of. This goes back to the point I made early, charities want to raise money and if they can’t sell your timeshare they don’t want it.
Getting Started
Now that you’ve considered the various points let’s look at what you need to do to get started.
Step 1: Gather the necessary paper work. To start you will need to gather the necessary paper work in order to donate your timeshare. Below is a list of things you should gather. I got this from the Timeshare Trap, so check them out to learn more.
- Resort Info. Name, address, and phone number.
- Deed. You will need the deed or certificate of ownership.
- Exchange Company. Which exchange company is your timeshare affiliated with? (Ex. RCI, Interval International)
- Maintenance Fees. You will need to know the amount owed, and the due date they have to be paid.
- Taxes. If you have to pay real estate taxes you will need to disclose this as well.
- Loans. If you still have a loan on your timeshare you will have to disclose this.
- Membership Info. You will need your membership identification.
Step 2: Contact Donate For A Cause.
Next, you will have to contact Donate For a Cause. Here you will have to fill out a simple form or call them directly. From their they will contact you within 3 to 5 business days to disscuss your timeshare with you. To do this check out Donate For a Cause Here.
Step 3: Complete The Nessisary Paperwork
Finally, the last thing you need to do is complete the necessary paperwork to get accepted. Once this is done the DFC will do an analysis of your timeshare property and see if it fits their criteria. Typically what this means is that if they can’t sell it they don’t want it and like I mentioned before they won’t take on every timeshare, just the ones they can make a profit on.
What To Do If You Don’t Get Accepted
Finally, if you apply for the program and you can’t get accepted for one reason or another don’t give up. Their are other organizations that may possibly take on your timeshare. However one word of advice is to beware of the scammers.
If a company you contact is asking you to pay a large sum of money upfront in order to donate your timeshare beware. Typically these companies do not charge much if anything at all to donate your timeshare. As with Donate For a Cause you will only have to pay a fee $25if the DFC has to request a new deed or a $75 fee for an affidavit of death in the case that the owner of the timeshare has passed away.
In the end this entire process can take as much as 8 to 12 weeks or more to complete depending on the resort. So be patient .
Are you planning to donate your timeshare or have already done it and would like to share your thoughts, questions, comments, or tips. Feel free to leave them below to help those who are looking to complete this process on how to donate a timeshare to charity.
Cheers!
This article was recently featured in the Carnival of Personal Finance by Wealth Pilgrim.
Joe Thompson says
January 26, 2012 at 5:51 pmMisleading info. Contacted Donateforacause and they wanted approximately $2500 in transfer fees per week to donate, plus wanted me to pay 2012 dues, over $3000. SCAM??
Christopher says
January 26, 2012 at 9:17 pmJoe that’s interesting. First off, I can understand how DFC would want you to pay your maintenance fees because they don’t want to pay them either. Their goal is to sell profitable timeshares for their organization. In fact, I’ve only found 3 fees they charge that I know off. Here is what DFC claims to charge for fee based on their website.
As far as $2500 a week in transfer fees that seems odd to me. A typical transfer fee is usually only ever charged once and for it to be this high sounds odd to me. I’d like to hear more details on this if you would get a chance Joe. Thanks for the comment I sure it will definitely help any of our reader who are looking to donate their timeshare.
Renee Tucker says
February 15, 2012 at 12:14 pmI too talked to someone at DFC and was surprised at the expense but the more I talked with the gal I think I believed the reasoning although I could not afford to pay 2,500 to donate my timeshare. It wasn’t $2,500 per week that was tranfer fees from the seller to the buyer. She is sending me documents and putting me in contact with their broker who will supposedly try to sell our time share at no upfront expense but will take 35% of proceeds if and when sold. They do not guarentee an amount or set a time limit but try to sell it as quickly as possible.
shon says
February 18, 2012 at 6:57 pmTimeshare donation can work. Most companies won’t take them due to them being a high liability. However, I myself own a company that takes timeshare donations. You may visit my website @ http://www.americanvacationservice.com or call 866-430-7021 if you have questions and want to know more. I also have a link on my site where you can contact past clients for additional information. Thanks.
Eva Budge says
August 6, 2014 at 6:29 pmThe timeshare industry has been into the lion’s mouth for the last couple of years, and it has generated lots of controversy and discussions in many forums and blogs on the web. However, since we’re living an economic downturn, anyone would expect that the timeshare sales collapse, but instead of that the sales seem to be increasing… but this comes with a trap: timeshare scams are increasing too. That leads us to the question: then, why keep people investing on timeshares?
Violet Cooper says
September 3, 2014 at 1:59 pmProbably the most viable option is to cancel your timeshare and check if any money can be recovered. Even there, there are companies who will -that might be linked to resell scams- that will claim to have experience and knowledge in the in and outs of the industry to help you recover your deposit.
Nadine says
September 18, 2014 at 12:53 pmThe best solution to the dilemma of how to get out of timeshare is the cancellation of the contract. Timeshare cancellation is the most effective way to get rid of a timeshare. By cancelling the contract you can relief yourself from all the payments and obligations that you have when you own a timeshare, plus you won’t have any further strings attached to the resort.