Q: I’ve owned a timeshare for the past decade. I’ve used it a few times, but mostly, it’s just sat there, year after year. I’ve been paying on it, but I lost my job last year, and frankly, it’s more important to me to pay my mortgage than pay my timeshare bills.

Is it possible to quitclaim a timeshare back to the resort?

A: You certainly can quit claim your timeshare back to a resort if the resort has agreed to buy the timeshare back from you.

Many owner that bought timeshares over the last ten years have found out that the resale for timeshares is limited, particularly in an environment where there are few buyers of resale timeshares.

If you want to sell your timeshare, you should talk to the resort about transferring title back to them. If you can’t resell or transfer the timeshare back to them, you might have to try to sell your week or time that is available to you for the timeshare on one of the various websites that allow you to list your vacation rentals.

Some timeshare developers are better than others in handling resales. Last year I attended a timeshare presentation in which the timeshare developer basically had an incentive for you to always use the timeshare developer for resales. If the resale did not occur through them, any subsequent owner of the timeshare wouldn’t benefit from various partnerships, points, and benefits available through the developer’s timeshare network – a neat little circle.

Another interesting fact about the presentation I attended was that the developer was eager to offer financing for the purchase. The sales representative encouraged me to later obtain refinance, but they were more than happy to finance my purchase right then and there, before I had time to rethink it.

There are some companies that work with timeshares owners, but you need to be careful. Don’t pay an upfront fee to list your property only to find out that there are no buyers on that site.

Don’t transfer your timeshare to these companies, unless it’s a true purchase and the company agrees in writing to pay off any amount you owe to your lender and the timeshare developer at the time of the sale. Otherwise, you might end up still owing money to your timeshare lender but have no right to use the timeshare.

Lastly, some developments have rental offices that can help exchange or transfer your timeshare use to another property. If you can transfer your time to another property that can get you a time slot that is more readily rentable, you might want to consider that option.

If you are successful in selling the timeshare, let me know how it goes.