Time Share Maintenance Fees should be considered as part of your vacation budget.

When a new time share resort opens, the fees are rather modest. Usually, it is the developer who establishes the initial time share association fees because there are very few owners. As the project matures, those fees are eventually transferred to the association of timeshare owners.

Over the years, I have heard many customers complain about their time share fees. "They keep going up"! To be truthful, I was one of those people, particularly at my Village at Izaty's time share. Because my Village at Izaty's deeded week is only a few hours away, I started attending the associations annual meeting. I also did a spread sheet of the annual fees from the time I orginally purchased until this past year of 2006.

I found that my complaint was not valid. The increases were not anywhere near what, in my mind, I thought they were. Usually, the increase was only about $10 to $15 per year. "Well, that is reasonable," I thought.

At the last Village at Izaty's annual meeting, I complimented the board of directors on the work they were doing. This resort was no different from any other time share resort. The developer set up the association in the by-laws, and just recently the time share owners bought out the developer, including the sales building that the developer had built. That building now belongs to our association. The developer is no longer building any new time share units at the Village at Izaty's. There are some time share units "for sale", but at 50% off from the usual price, to current owners who want a second week. The main thrust of sales currently, of the time share weeks that are left to be sold, are in upgrading owners who have equity in their current weeks, to a different season or larger unit. Until the remaining time share weeks are sold, the association is billing the developer the cost of the annual time share maintenance fee.

The fees are also determined by the geographical locations of resorts. Some areas of the country have higher incidences of hurricane and tornadoes, thus higher insurance fees are built into the maintenance fees.

Another aspect of association fees is maintaining a resorts 5 star or 4 star status. Obviously, maintaining a 5 star status helps in your ability to exchange to other 5 star resorts.

Now, on larger resorts in major areas of the U.S. where the developer may be a Marriott or huge corporation, the corporation may have a vested interest in the time share association, and the member owners may not have as much say in how the fees and expenses are distributed. This is omething to ask about when considering a purchase.

Here's what WE did to solve the annual maintenance fee which is due the first of every year. We budget our money and send the resort association $45 each month, rather than trying to come up with the whole amount in December of each year.

Our second time share resort is at The Treetops Village at Four Seasons at Lake Ozark, Missouri. It is a 5 star resort, and the developer sold it out many years ago. The time share maintenance fees are much lower. We budget $30 per month and pay it monthly to our resort association.

So, we seriously recommend making arrangements to pay your maintenance fees monthly and consider those as part of your vacation budget.

Maintaining 5 Star Resort status is a key to great vacations accomodations. Look at your maintenance fee in your monthly budget as your vacation expense.

Tell us of your personal experiences regarding time share maintenance fees at your resort or resorts.

Maintenance Fees

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