If you no longer want your timeshare and are willing to part with it for free, you may want to try and give it directly back to the resort. You can do this by filing a “Quit Claim Deed.”
Quit Claim Deeds are usually used during divorces. When one of the parties in a divorce gives up the rights to a property, a Quit Claim Deed is used. While this is the usual use of this document, it may also be possible to use it to give back your resort unit to the company from which you purchased it from.
The important issue to remember here is that the timeshare company is under no obligation to accept the Quit Claim Deed. It therefore pays to offer them the Quit Claim Deed politely and hope they will take it. They may very well not accept your offer to return it because many resorts would rather have someone continue to pay maintenance and other fees, than to have the unit back. There isn’t a whole lot you can do in this situation. The only leverage you may have is that if you know you will default on your loan, you may use this to convince the resort it will be less expensive for them to take the unit back than having to repossess it later.
When you give the resort the Quit Claim Deed and it is accepted, you give up any rights to the property or any future rights of your heirs or assignees. While it’s highly advisable to have an attorney help you out with this, you can give it a try by yourself if you want. You can get a free Quit Claim Deed with a simple search on the Internet. Fill in the information pertaining to your situation, the description on the original deed, etc. and record it at the county courthouse.
Once you have the Quick Claim Deed recorded, take it to resort manager and remember to be polite. The chance of this working depends a lot on the current management of your resort, but it is worth a try, especially if the only other option is defaulting on the payments.