Sticky - DRI now accepting deedbacks - Give back your Diamond Resorts Timeshare

TUGBrian said:

you would need to pay off any loan attached to the ownership in nearly all cases.

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So what are our options if the loan is not paid off? Of course we were not completely aware of what we were getting ourselves into and now that we have learned more we want to get rid of it. I know we will take a loss on what we've already spent and thats fine. But are there any other options? I'm afraid we'd never be able to sell it.

unfortunately your only real options are to default on the loan, or pay it off.

Our saga seems to have no end. We sent our first email on January 5th, 2016, requesting deed-back for property at Ridgewood Townhouses Phase II and received the ticket number.

Today, May 5th, 2016, I'm on a first name basis with three people in the voluntary deedback (inventory) dept. The good news is they seem to have more help in that dept now, instead of just Debbie (who is now gone). But, Christine sent our docs to First American title on March 15, and according to the supervisor (I now have his direct #), the affidavit has been filed but not yet completed.

I call every day now. Every. Single. Day. Squeaky wheel, right? Sigh. Here's to my continued - and hopefully not misplaced - hope for good news someday soon!

In other news - our Wyndham Ovation return was fast, painless, and free!

StuckWithWyndham said:

Our saga seems to have no end. We sent our first email on January 5th, 2016, requesting deed-back for property at Ridgewood Townhouses Phase II and received the ticket number.

Today, May 5th, 2016, I'm on a first name basis with three people in the voluntary deedback (inventory) dept. The good news is they seem to have more help in that dept now, instead of just Debbie (who is now gone). But, Christine sent our docs to First American title on March 15, and according to the supervisor (I now have his direct #), the affidavit has been filed but not yet completed.

I call every day now. Every. Single. Day. Squeaky wheel, right? Sigh. Here's to my continued - and hopefully not misplaced - hope for good news someday soon!

In other news - our Wyndham Ovation return was fast, painless, and free!

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It's a sloooowwww process. It took several months for our deed back to be processed but they eventually got the job done. Be patient but persistent.

TUGBrian said:

we have heard from a number of owners that when contacting DRI directly (not using the email or numbers provided in the thread) that most are told the same thing...mainly that DRI is not taking back intervals so clearly this program is not one that is shared with most employees who would interact with owners.

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Perhaps this is a trial program. The DRI CEO announced in the company's earning call earlier this week:

"... we'll soon be introducing our Transitions program. We understand that circumstances or vacation needs of our members and owners may change and the Transition program will allow those in good standing to relinquish their interest to us in a simple, safe, and respectful manner."

Cdn owner

marg2 said:

I think you'll have to pay your MF if you want to surrender this. Pay your MF, then send in your request to surrender. When they say they accept your request and send you the documents, then do a trade with II. this is what I did. I booked something with II while the documents were on their way back to DRI.

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Hi Marg, in an earlier post you said something about a special form that Canadians need? Can you tell me what that it please and how to get it? I haven't contacted DRI about a return of points but am researching it all and live in Canada. I have deeded week and also points...thinking of returning my points. Thank you!

Well this thread has been quite the interesting read. It is nice seeing all the success stories .

Today I am taking on the task of helping my parents get rid of their DRI powhatan timeshare . This has been stressing them out for too long. They went through a reseller (scam) group a few years back and got burned for a couple thousand . Most recently another shady group has tried to contact them about getting rid of their timeshare . My parents had talked here and there about wanting to get rid of it but I was never told about the company that scammed them or a meeting that they recently took as well . This was very alarming to me when I found out . I have been doing research for the past 48 hours or so and I can't believe how many scam's there are out there in the world of timeshares .

I am going to email loss mitigation today when I get all of their info in order .
Are there any other things that should be included in the email besides everything listed on the main post ? Do i have to give a reason for my request ? such as health or financial reasons ? or possibly any clever wording that may help to fast track this and or get my request to the right person ? I just want to be as thorough as possible with the email . I understand this can and probably will be a long process. I just want to start off the best I can .


Edit : Just found out that they no longer have a deed , A few years back they converted from their deed to "points" . So from what I understand since the deed is already back in diamonds hands they dont have to go
though the county to transfer or anything like that as its already been done . The only thing left is the points, they have 13,000 . Is there anything different that must be done if there is no deed involved ?

My understanding is that with or without a deed you still have the same basic steps.

Send an email to loss mitigation and give them a reason (like health) of why you need them to take it back

Good Luck

After your initial email, be prepared to call every day or so for updates. Don't leave it to DRI to get back to you. I've posted the number a bazillion times throughout the thread. And document every phone call - if you are told conflicting info, you will be able to call them out on it. Having just points makes the voluntary surrender easier, but it still takes forever and a day. Good luck!

Don't give up.

dougp26364 said:

It's a sloooowwww process. It took several months for our deed back to be processed but they eventually got the job done. Be patient but persistent.

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It is indeed a very slow process, but we are happy to announce that this month we are finally free of two Diamond Resort weeks that we no longer wanted. Our process began at the end of September 2015 when I found this thread and first contacted LossMitigation. Our process required multiple calls and multiple emails during the past seven months and even required a corrective deed to be filed for one of our units. There were many times that we did not think this was going to happen, but it is finally done.

I would like to sincerely thank TUGBrian for originally starting this thread and posting this information, and the posters like Doug above who took the time to chronicle their difficult journeys, which gave us the confidence to continue to contact DRI and not give up, even when things seemed to completely stall for weeks at a time. Our advice is the same as others; do not give up and continue to contact DRI regularly. Doug said it best: Be patient but persistent. It has appeared to us through the process that this is a small, understaffed, overburdened, high turnover department at DRI, but I got the sense in our multiple contacts with them that there are some people there who are really trying to do their best to get these done.

Just checked the county deeds and our two units are not in our name any more and are listed to be owned by Lake Tahoe Partners, Inc. as of 5/10/2016. Wonder if Diamond will let us know we are not longer owners.

riverdees05 said:

Just checked the county deeds and our two units are not in our name any more and are listed to be owned by Lake Tahoe Partners, Inc. as of 5/10/2016. Wonder if Diamond will let us know we are not longer owners.

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We have had absolutely NO further communication from them once we mailed our signed deed's back to them. For that matter our account THE Club account is still open despite showing the account balance as zero and no payments made on our part. So no, they're not going to send you a snail mail, E-mail, phone message, smoke signal or anything else. Just save any copies you've kept and be happy your out. I say keep the copies because they've shown such great organization in this process for most of us involved

Thank you, tug!

My check to Chicago Title cleared! We are soon to be rid of our draining timeshare!

We loved our resort, but with the takeover, the fees practically doubled! They were about the same as our Marriott resort, without all the amenities, locations, or resort feel.

Thank you to TUG!!! :whoopie:

My story

Bought Polo Towers Villas in 2003, thought the idea was great, the MF were under $500 at the time I believe. Perfect.

MF started to climb, we paid to convert to points, then at every "update" new sales pitch. At the latest one we can pay $24k to enter this new membership blah blah blah.

Forward to Dec. 2015. I have been searching for a way to get out for years now and finally found this deed back. I thought I was too late but had to try anyways. I sent in my email, they emailed me back with ticket number.
I waited and waited...during this time I was also moving...luckily I didn't move far and was able to retrieve all the documents.

I sent it in and waited....I get a letter in the mail saying I didn't sign the check!
I almost collapsed, in my excitement I forgot one important thing. I sent the check back in and waited....finally the check was cashed in Feb 2016. I log on every few weeks to see if my account is still there, it was. I emailed them yesterday 5/24 and got a response today with the recorded papers that it has been complete. :whoopie::whoopie::whoopie::whoopie:
However I can still log in tonight, so just waiting on that.

THANK YOU SO MUCH TUG!
At every update they kept bringing up "special assessment" to scare us into converting, good thing we were able to hold our ground.

nice to see continued success stories!

the speed has certainly slowed down, but its clear they are still taking back weeks!

overkast said:

Bought Polo Towers Villas in 2003, thought the idea was great, the MF were under $500 at the time I believe. Perfect.

MF started to climb, we paid to convert to points, then at every "update" new sales pitch. At the latest one we can pay $24k to enter this new membership blah blah blah.

Forward to Dec. 2015. I have been searching for a way to get out for years now and finally found this deed back. I thought I was too late but had to try anyways. I sent in my email, they emailed me back with ticket number.
I waited and waited...during this time I was also moving...luckily I didn't move far and was able to retrieve all the documents.

I sent it in and waited....I get a letter in the mail saying I didn't sign the check!
I almost collapsed, in my excitement I forgot one important thing. I sent the check back in and waited....finally the check was cashed in Feb 2016. I log on every few weeks to see if my account is still there, it was. I emailed them yesterday 5/24 and got a response today with the recorded papers that it has been complete. :whoopie::whoopie::whoopie::whoopie:
However I can still log in tonight, so just waiting on that.

THANK YOU SO MUCH TUG!
At every update they kept bringing up "special assessment" to scare us into converting, good thing we were able to hold our ground.

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Other than the fact we purchased in 1998 and again in 1999, your story is the same as ours. We enjoyed the ownership until the fee's got out of hand. FWIW I can still log onto our account but it shows a zero balance. We had 2015 points we had saved into 2016. I suspect since those were paid for points there's a glitch that doesn't allow them to cancel the account until they expire. Of course I wouldn't think I could use them because we didn't pay THE Club fee's and the I.I. corporate account shouldn't be valid for 2016 since we didn't pay the fee's. I can still log onto DRI's I.I. corporate account as well but, I.I. typically doesn't remove anything unless you call them and tell them to do so.

RSWofford said:

We sent our request last night, so we're really hoping this works. Man, vacation planning is supposed to be fun.

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Sorry it took so long to follow up. We were successful at deeding back the property. So glad we found out about this through this site. Thanks to all who post helpful info.

DRI taking back Deeds

So this is a voluntary surrender, no cash value to member surrendering DRI point system time share?

Sydmb said:

So this is a voluntary surrender, no cash value to member surrendering DRI point system time share?

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It is voluntary. No value to the member other than getting a monkey off their back plus, the member pays the transfer/handling fee of $250. All loans must be paid in full before they'll accept it back.

FINALLY - we're done with DRI! We sent our first email on January 5th, 2016, requesting deed-back for Los Abrigados property at Ridgewood Townhouses Phase II and received the ticket number.

Today, May 31st, 2016, I called and received the news that the deed has been transferred, and then I called the county assessor's office and verified. Never thought it would end, and SO GLAD it has!

Such good info on this thread . On the way to getting my parents out of their time share . Just got the paperwork delivered this week . Thanks so much TUG .

DRI Deed back- do now or wait

I have deeded and points in a Diamond Timeshare. I would like to start the deed back process now, but I am wondering if I should wait since I have a scheduled vacation in mid September to use up some points. If I start the deed back now, will that effect my current vacation plans. Should I start it in late September, after vacation? If I do start it in late September, that might take the finalization into the new year 2017, since it looks like some deed backs take about 6 months to complete. If I go into the new year, would I be required to pay a full new years worth of maintenance fees and assessment fees before the deed back is complete?

If the transfer go thru before you take your vacation the reservation at the DRI resort will be cancelled. So when you get the paperwork to transfer the deed back to DRI, take your time and do not sent it till a week or so after your vacation.

If on the other hand, if you change the usage to a II exchange, the minute they are booked, the points are deducted from DRI and can not be cancelled by DRI.

So far on this thread I don't see and avalanche of people stating that Diamond is executing any meaningful buy back program. Are there any responses from people that have received any money they invested in the company back from Diamond.

I have bought 60,000 points over the years at a cost of over $130,000 and have paid almost $200,000 in maintenance fees. We have vacationed but isn't there a value to the points that should be reimbursed (minus recording and legal fees) to the surrendering owner? This whole thing sounds like another scam by Diamond, to tamp down owner complaints on the internet and sites like this one

ottoneely said:

So far on this thread I don't see and avalanche of people stating that Diamond is executing any meaningful buy back program. Are there any responses from people that have received any money they invested in the company back from Diamond.



I have bought 60,000 points over the years at a cost of over $130,000 and have paid almost $200,000 in maintenance fees. We have vacationed but isn't there a value to the points that should be reimbursed (minus recording and legal fees) to the surrendering owner? This whole thing sounds like another scam by Diamond, to tamp down owner complaints on the internet and sites like this one

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There are over 500 responses on this thread. Its a DEED back program, not a MONEY back program. Some former owners consider it money in the bank to be rid of the committment for maintenance fees.


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