A Timeline of My Most Recent Hyatt Residence Club Resale Purchase

In my previous post, I explained what specific timeshares that I own and disclosed that I recently completed a resale purchase of a second timeshare at Hyatt Beach House in Key West, Florida. 

I now own two weeks at the Hyatt Beach House.  It seems strange to say that considering that I have never been to the Hyatt Beach House, have no tremendous desire to go, and did not actually target the Hyatt Beach House to purchase.  

As explained in my previous post on my personal timeshare strategy, I bought a second timeshare because we travel a lot and I get tremendous value out of my original Hyatt timeshare week.  

Since Hyatt's legacy program (they have switched to an all points systems called the Hyatt Portfolio program) is a hybrid system where you can use your week or exchange into points, I found that using points to exchange through Interval International can provide enormous value.  As a result, I did want another Hyatt week but my only worry was the amount of points associated with that week and the amount of annual maintenance fees.  With the legacy program being phased out, I wanted to get another legacy week before they became scarce.  

The new Hyatt Portfolio Program has some perks but the offered price is extremely expensive.  Since it is now a points system, resales point purchases will likely be very rare to find, especially at discounted prices.  With this is mind, I do think that it is a great time to purchase a legacy Hyatt week. 
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Out of coincidence, I ended up with another Hyatt Beach House week.  So far, my strategy has panned out and have some great trips already planned for 2019 and even 2020 with a bunch of requests pending. 

While I am working on a complete guide to purchase a resale timeshare (I know that it is way overdue), I thought that I would provide you with the time table of what transpired with my purchase of my Hyatt week.   As discussed, I ended up purchasing this unit through Sumday Vacations who used Greatway Services for their closings.  

Time Table:

8/17/17:  Payment was received
8/24/17:  Title information received
8/31/17:  Documents were signed
9/18/17:  Closing documents for GreatWay sent
9/25/17:  Closing documents for GreatWay signed
10/12/17:   Received Power of Attorney for GreatWay
10/19/17:  Right of First Refusal sent to Hyatt
11/9/17:  Right of First Refusal decision from Hyatt, (ROFR did not apply)
11/22/17   Deed was sent to the County for Recording
12/20/17:  Received recorded deed
12/22/17:  Deed sent to Hyatt for the transfer of ownership.
Mid January:  Access to Hyatt Residence Club website with the ability to make reservations. 

My Thoughts:

As you can see from the times listed above, it took over 4 months for the purchase and transfer to go through.  This was a long time.  I have purchased resale timeshares before and this was longer than normal.  However, in Sumday Vacation's defense, part of this delay was due to me. 

During the purchase transaction, Hurricane Irma came through Florida and almost had a direct hit on Key West, directly where my new potential timeshare was located.  Obviously, I was concerned with going through the purchase if (i) the resort was not going to actually be there and (ii) if the resort got extremely damaged which would result in either a special assessment (one time charge for extraordinary damage) or a significant increase in maintenance fees.  

I was prepared to go through with the purchase ONLY if the previous owner would be responsible for any special assessments that were issued while they still owned the timeshare.  I inquired about this issue and it took some various communications with the parties to determine how this would be handled.  

Essentially, it was agreed that any assessments before January 1, 2018 would be the previous owners responsibility and anything thereafter would be mine.  

I was definitely concerned about this but did reach out to the Hyatt Residence Club directly and the resort.  While the resort did close for a month or so, the damage was fairly minimal and they did not anticipate any major renovations.  With that confirmation, I went forward with the purchase understanding the potential risks. 

Conclusion:

The time table for this particular timeshare resale purchase was longer than normal but I would expect that a typical timeshare resale purchase should take about 60 days.  For Hyatt purchases, they have the Right of First Refusal which takes approximately 30 days and the other documents and processes should only take a few weeks. 

How long have your timeshare purchases taken?

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