What is Timeshare ?
The history of timeshare
The origin of timeshare comes from France. There 30 years ago a
hotel was build by many owners who shared the usage of the
apartments.
The new idea of combining hotel investment and vacation
pre-investment turned into a triumphal march in the USA and came
from there back to Europe.
How does timeshare work?
Timeshare combines contracts of the hotel and touristic branch,
where an owner gives a customer (timeshare usage right owner) the
right to use a flat, e.g. an apartment, at a certain time or
flexible time of the year by paying a fixed price. That means a
timeshare holder is a shared usage right owner opposed a shared
property owner.
There are various concepts, here are some common ones:
The customer gets for paying a certain purchase sum the right to
use each year, or each odd year, or each even year in turn a
vacation accommodation (hotel room or apartment) a certain
period of time, mostly a fixed week.
This rights can be used
depending of the contract, owner and concept from few years to
not limited years. The usage rights can also be left, resaled,
rented or given away.
Similar to a flat-sharing community it is common that that the
timeshare usage right owner pays the operation, administration and
maintenance fee.
Timeshare is often
compared, even by timeshare companies, with a vacation
accommodation or vacation house of time.
What is the difference
to fractional ownership?
Fractional ownership is
similar to timeshare when it comes to usage rights but differs
fundamentally in one point:
The fractional ownership holder is a shared
property owner of the resort or apartment opposed to shared time
(week) usage rights as with timeshare. The fractional ownership
is coupled with shared time (weeks) usage rights of
apartments or usage rights of apartments. Concepts may differ.
Regulation
Timeshare in the EU is regulated:
EU Timeshare Directive
94/47/EC of 1994.
EU Timeshare Directive
2008/122/EC of 2009, coming into national law till 23th February 2011.
