Timeshare

The street of Kuta are full of people harrassing tourists to buy timeshare. (In the past 2 years villa sales have become the boom industry and many of these are simply a variation on the timeshare theme see buying a villa).

An endless stream of people come to Bali, love the place, get talked into buying timeshare and wake up the following morning having committed themselves to spending a loot of money and regretting it.

The people that sell timeshare are experts at pursuading people to buy.

For people that know and fully understand the concept of timeshare and if they are people who have regular holidays timeshare can work very well. Several hotels in Bali (such as the Peninsula) are fully timeshare owned with many happy customers.

Unfortunately for many people this is not the case and are they are talked into buying something they don't really want before they understand the ramifications.

Something to know is that you can buy timeshare very cheaply, not from the salespeople on the street but from people who have been talked into buying and regret it and want to offload their purchase. There are websites where you can buy second hand timeshare at half the original cost.

Very often there is nothing that can be done once the document is signed. If you get into a problem you need good advice from people who fully understand the timeshare industry and the legal ramifications.

What is Timeshare?

Timeshare is shared ownership of a holiday unit such as an apartment or hotel room.

The customer buys one, two or more weeks each year in a hotel or other complex. This inital purchase means that the holiday each year (some schemes may be every other year) must be taken in the hotel that has been sold in the first place however for an additional fee to an international exchange company the week stay can be exchanged for one of millions of units all over the world.

The duration of the timeshare arrangement is fixed usually for around 25 years. In saome cases the term may be shorter or longer. In Bali it is not legally possible to have a term of more than 30 years although one organisation sold term sof 99 years by mistake.

In addition to the original purchase cost which could vary considerably the owner must pay an annual "maintenance fee" which may be around US$250 or US$350 per year. If you want to exchange ther is an additional cost of around US$172 per week exchanged.

The timeshare industry does have some ethical operators but the timeshare industry is held in scorn by many people because of the many unsavoury characters who sell timeshare and who use many dodgy tricks to pursuade people to buy.