Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics.
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
Yes, your aunt has (probably) signed up for what's essentially a scam. This is their whole business model, they know timeshares sound better than they end up being, so they intentionally trick people into signing contracts that are very difficult to get out of, so they can't just dump it the moment they realize they don't want it anymore.
Timeshares are written up as if they were property. Property that she shares with other people and is contractually required to pay for the upkeep. It's basically a never ending money generator for the owners. Think of it a hotel where all the rooms are rented out to people who agreed to pay for them no matter if they use it or not.
As the owner of "property" she has a few choices. First off read the contract.
The management company sometimes reserves the right to buy the property back. Usually a good option - the "Owner" loses money but gets out of the never-ending bills.
She can also sell/give the timeshare to somebody else on the timeshare selling site. This transfers the ownership to somebody else who might like it.
If the property has degraded in value because of lack of maintenance from the management she might be able to get out by civil lawsuit. This is unlikely as most timeshare companies do exactly the bare minimum to meet their contractual obligations.