Timeshare Owners Educational Conference and Rights

What a great experience I had on Sunday with members of the National Timeshare Owners Association. Approximately 130 members of NTOA took advantage of the opportunity to meet in Baltimore, Maryland for an educational conference on timeshare ownership.

I had an opportunity to speak at the timeshare conference, along with Shep Altshuler, who publishes Timesharing Today, the Independent Voice of Vacation Ownership and Paula diPaola and Woody Cary, both from Platinum Interchange timeshare exchange.

The best part of the meeting was probably the question and answer time, because that’s when timeshare owners had the chance to ask the speakers for explanations and updates. The Q & A time dealt with many different aspects of timesharing that really matter to them as owners, often as owners of multiple timeshare weeks and at multiple resorts.

Timeshare Owners and the Right to Know

One of the challenges of vacation ownership is that sometimes when people buy timeshare they find that after the sale there is no one around to answer their questions or address their concerns. And while the ins and outs of timeshare exchange, timeshare resales, timeshare rentals, and other points about ownership aren’t rocket science, they aren’t self-evident either! Many timeshare owners today miss the full range of perks and benefits that go with vacation ownership simply because they don’t really understand them and unless they are members of a timeshare owners organization such NTOA, they have no one to ask.

An important point brought out in the discussions on Sunday is that, as a timeshare owner, you should know who your board members are. Who sits on your Homeowners Association Board? How can you get in touch with them? If you don’t know the answer to these questions, then push until you find out. You have a right to know who is making decisions concerning property in which you have an ownership. And on that same vein, you have a right to know the names and contact information of the other people who share ownership of a timeshare unit with you.

Good Things are Happening for Timeshare Owners

Thanks to NTOA and other owner-based timeshare organizations, the experience of owning timeshare continues to get better and better. As NTOA founder and president Ed Hastry is fond of saying, “Educated timeshare owners are happy timeshare owners.”

I really support that attitude. Critics of timeshare are often people who simply don’t know all the facts. And this type of misunderstanding and misinformation can be found everywhere from forums and bulletin boards to governmental agencies – a matter we are going to look at more closely in upcoming blog posts.

In tomorrow’s The Timeshare Authority blog, I am going to share with you, some of the same information I gave the National Timeshare Owners Association. I want to first debunk the myth that timeshares don’t resell. I have the statistical data to prove that not only can you resell timeshare, but that advertising your timeshare online is one of the very best ways to do it.

Like the popular TV show on the Discovery Channel, I’m going take on some of the worst and most damaging pieces of misinformation, and I am going to be a “myth buster.”

Enjoy this humorous clip from MythBusters.