What Happens if you Don't Pay

ExtinctJenn

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
May seem like an odd question but if you are DVC and paid the initial fee(s) in full (didn't finance) what would then happen if you couldn't pay your annual maintenance fee? Would you lose your interest in the property?

I'm not DVC but it's been something I've always wondered.
 

ExtinctJenn

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
First, you wouldn't be able to use your points, and secondly, Disney would foreclose on your real estate investment.
So even though you "paid for" the actual real estate and it's just a fee that you aren't able to pay, they can foreclose on that? Sort of like how an HOA can foreclose if you don't pay a fine they assess I suppose?
 

Phonedave

Well-Known Member
I assume it works as follows.

1) As soon as you do not pay, you do not have any points to use.
2) Miss enough payments, and letters will start to come.
3) Miss even more, and DVC will attempt to make itself whole - by taking your contract, computing the fair market value, subtracting whatever you owe, and then returning the rest to you (minus whatever their costs for the effort are)

Your best bet, once you reach stage 2, would be to arrange to sell it privately - but I'm not sure how that would work, technicaly DVC would have a lein on the property.



-dave
 

nickys

Premium Member
It's been 5 years since they stopped sending letters.

Then covid happened in 2020. I never heard from them again. Thoughts?

So you paid off the cost in full but stopped paying the maintenance fees?
Can you still log in and see your account and contract?

In any case the account will be frozen, you won’t be able to use your points and you won’t be able to sell until you pay the outstanding fees plus interest.
 

Snake12

New Member
So you paid off the cost in full but stopped paying the maintenance fees?
Can you still log in and see your account and contract?

In any case the account will be frozen, you won’t be able to use your points and you won’t be able to sell until you pay the outstanding fees plus interest.
It has forclosed. I no longer own the property.
 

freediverdude

Well-Known Member
This is something I've been wondering too. My situation was a little different though, in that I was financing, got laid off in 2015, and then Disney offered to have me.just sign the contract back to them with no more owed, instead of going through a foreclosure. It probably made a difference that the contract was worth about the same as what I owed, so I wasn't underwater or really had any equity either. I do wonder if I could ever buy again though. I'm guessing maybe, because it was a friendly transaction, and they didn't have to drag me to court or come after me for collections or anything.
Given what's happened since then with both the theme parks and DVC, I don't know if I want to buy back in though.
 

GoofGoof

Premium Member
This is something I've been wondering too. My situation was a little different though, in that I was financing, got laid off in 2015, and then Disney offered to have me.just sign the contract back to them with no more owed, instead of going through a foreclosure. It probably made a difference that the contract was worth about the same as what I owed, so I wasn't underwater or really had any equity either. I do wonder if I could ever buy again though. I'm guessing maybe, because it was a friendly transaction, and they didn't have to drag me to court or come after me for collections or anything.
Given what's happened since then with both the theme parks and DVC, I don't know if I want to buy back in though.
I think they would gladly sell to you again today. Here is my understanding of how the financing works or at least did work up to a few years back. Disney sells you the points and sets up the loan. They don’t keep the loans, they package a group of loans together and sell to a bank who invests in mortgages. These are basically considered “junk loans” since they are backed by a timeshare which is why the interest rate is higher than a traditional mortgage backed by a home. There’s always a market for almost everything as long as the price is right (and in this case it’s the higher interest rate that makes the loans attractive).

This is normal practice with mortgage companies. They package a bunch of loans together and sell to investors. In this typical situation when you default on the loan the new owner of the mortgage can foreclose and collect what they can from you which usually ends up in them taking your house to sell in a foreclosure sale. Disney does not want banks owning foreclosed DVC points and dumping them back on the open market at whatever price they see fit for obvious reasons so they had an agreement with the banks that they sold the loans to where they would take back the defaulted DVC loans and swap in new DVC loans not in default to keep the banks whole. Then Disney would take back the points from the owner in default and eventually sell them again to a new owner at their price. The bank was happy with this arrangement since their risk of loans in default dropped dramatically and Disney kept control of those points and kept the price they would be sold for at a level they found acceptable. Win/win for both sides.

So I believe (no proof of this, just my opinion) that they would be more than happy to sell you some more points and give you a loan again since they know they can re-sell the points if you do happen to default and come out OK.
 

Fido Chuckwagon

Well-Known Member
This is something I've been wondering too. My situation was a little different though, in that I was financing, got laid off in 2015, and then Disney offered to have me.just sign the contract back to them with no more owed, instead of going through a foreclosure. It probably made a difference that the contract was worth about the same as what I owed, so I wasn't underwater or really had any equity either. I do wonder if I could ever buy again though. I'm guessing maybe, because it was a friendly transaction, and they didn't have to drag me to court or come after me for collections or anything.
Given what's happened since then with both the theme parks and DVC, I don't know if I want to buy back in though.
They would probably be extremely likely to sell to you again. With that said, you should never finance DVC. If you can’t afford DVC, then you shouldn’t be buying it because the interest rates on the financing eat any potential savings versus just booking directly through Disney and/or renting points (if any such savings even really exist anymore given current direct prices and the time value of money).
 

nickys

Premium Member
They would probably be extremely likely to sell to you again. With that said, you should never finance DVC. If you can’t afford DVC, then you shouldn’t be buying it because the interest rates on the financing eat any potential savings versus just booking directly through Disney and/or renting points (if any such savings even really exist anymore given current direct prices and the time value of money).
As long as you can easily afford the repayments, preferably being able to overpay, it can be worthwhile.

Paying a lump sum up front depletes your savings. In an emergency, you may then have to raise that money quickly.

It isn’t for everybody but it worked fine for us. The cash cost of the 2 trips we made during the repayment period would have been more than the total we paid for the loan. After the 4th trip we were saving money. And even with the fall in resale prices we could get back the amount we paid. I see that as a win.
 

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