• Letter to Owners
• Timeshare Estate Planning
• Pay Fees with PayPal
• Timeshare Resale Scams
• “The Legend of Lord and Lady Lucerne”

•  Studios (sleep 4) – $330
• One Bedrooms (sleep 4) – $364
• One Bedroom & Loft (sleeps 6) – $381
• Two Bedrooms (sleep 6) – $381
• Three Bedroom (sleeps 8 ) – $398

We want to help you find ways to factor the 2013 fees into your home budget. Please consider the following:

• 2013 Maintenance invoices will be mailed on October 1, 2012; thus allowing an additional month to schedule the payment. Payment is due on January 31, 2013 with the following exception:
  • Owners with multiple units may spread payments out over six months with the final payment due on March 31, 2013.
• An automatic payment plan is available. Contact the office to set up with a credit or debit card.
• Prepay the 2013 fees at anytime in 2012, in whole or set up a payment plan.
• Payment methods: check by mail, credit/debit card by phone, credit/debit card by PayPal, or transfer from a PayPal account.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter. We all want our resort to continue improving and thrive. Your participation as a faithful owner will help ensure that it is around for many generations to enjoy.

 Best regards,

Clarence Symond, President

Timeshare Estate Planning

 At some point, we all need to plan for our exit from this world. Of course everyone should have a will; but have you considered the distribution of your timeshare units? Our experience tells us the answer is usually “no”. Everyone makes decisions about their home, but forget about the other real estate that they own, their Swiss Mountain Village property.

 As you may know, we have several hundred unit weeks that need foreclosing because owners have died or disappeared. If the majority of these owners had specified in their wills how to handle their timeshares, we would not be in the financial situation that we now find ourselves. In many cases, I am sure that the deceased’s family didn’t even think about Dad or Mom’s Swiss unit.

 Another similar situation is bankruptcies. When determining their assets, few consider their timeshare unit as an asset. Almost all owners that went through this crisis call to tell us that they don’t own it because of their bankruptcy. Unless it is specifically handled within the list of assets, you still own the property, even though past maintenance fees have been removed from your account.

 The following events leave Swiss Mountain Village in a difficult situation:

• Death
• Bankruptcy
• Divorce
• Moving

In most cases, we are not aware of any of these events until an invoice is returned to us by the Post Office, or an invoice goes unpaid. In many cases, we find no forwarding address or telephone number change. If an estate is settled without an opportunity on our part to speak with the heirs, the process is difficult and sometimes impossible to track down someone with knowledge of the deceased’s heirs.

 Please help us reduce the number of units that fall onto the “foreclosure” list by taking proactive steps to document your wishes about timeshare property. If you move, marry, divorce, have a spouse die, or start the bankruptcy process, please let us know so that we can assist you through changes of your deed or providing further information.

 Call us if you have any questions.

Take a look at the “Owners Page” on this website. You can now pay your maintenance fees through PayPal. You don’t even need to have a PayPal account. All you need is your credit or debit card. Currently, you can only pay the annual maintenance fee amount, not any other fees. However, we are working to permit a free format dollar amount in this application. If you have any questions about this feature, please email our office at info@swissmountain.com.

Everyone has heard of those unscrupulous salespeople who prey on the unwary vacationer accepting a free dinner or show “for just two hours” of their time. Now, with so many aging timeshare owners in the market to dispose of their timeshare holdings, a new breed of scam artist is attacking from the other end of the timeshare life cycle.

 I recently heard from one of our owners who asked me about a “too good to be true” opportunity. This Swiss Mountain Village owner was rightfully skeptical about an offer to sell one of their units for tens of thousands of dollars. And all the owner had to do was provide their credit card number to cover a small service fee. I advised this person to turn and run away from this offer with the knowledge that she wasn’t born yesterday, and thankfully didn’t bite when the sales person offered the hook.

 Let me set you straight, lest you believe that you can make a profit on your timeshare unit. If you have used your timeshare, rented it, or exchanged it, you have hopefully received many years of enjoyment and memories from it. That is your reward. Our units are selling for anything from one dollar to several hundred dollars. When you are ready to dispose of it, take what you can get, and remember the good times that you had. How can someone guarantee to sell your unit when you cannot even sell it on craigslist for a dollar?

 These scams hurt more than just the unwary seller; they also hurt the resort. One former owner “sold” his unit to a company; at least he says that he received money for it. Maybe he didn’t want to divulge that he paid them to take it. Anyway, he feels that he doesn’t own the unit, and the company that he dealt with says that he never signed the deeds over to them. Now, no one is willing to pay the maintenance fees. Another owner disposed of their units through a company that sold the units to a third party. We received the deed, but the address on the deed is invalid. There is no phone number for the new owner, and the middle-man company doesn’t answer their phone. So now we have another unit that is in limbo; but worse, is not paying its share of maintenance fees.

 Please…please…please, if you talk to a company offering to dispose of your unit, ask for their name and telephone number, and tell them that you will get back to them. Then go to your computer and Google the company. If you do not see results with the word SCAM in it, call them back to get more details. Then do some more research.

 If you have any questions about selling your unit to a company, call me. A little due diligence will pay off for both of us.

 - Bob Smith