Timeshares Editing and Proofreading Services

The purchase price is the least important number. What determines whether a timeshare is a good arrangement or a liability somebody's children inherit is the annual fee, its history of increases, the special assessments that are not in any brochure, and whether there is any way out. This industry's reputation was built on documents that led with the price and buried the rest.

We edit what timeshare and fractional ownership operators produce — pre-contract and key information documentation, annual fee and cost disclosure material, fee history and increase documentation, special assessment and reserve fund communications, exit, resale and relinquishment information, exchange programme and points system explanations, booking, availability and usage rules, owner association and governance documentation, transfer, inheritance and estate documentation, and marketing and presentation material. Our editors work on the total cost and the way out.

The ongoing cost and exit disclosure is where this sector either rebuilds trust or continues to earn its reputation, and its failure is presenting the purchase as the transaction. A timeshare is a purchase followed by an indefinite series of payments and the second part is the whole risk. We work through these so the annual fee is stated with its actual increase history over ten years rather than as a current figure, since a fee that has risen at seven per cent a year doubles in a decade and the history is the only honest forecast available; so special assessments over the same period are listed with their amounts and reasons, because a brochure that mentions the possibility without the record has disclosed nothing; so the total cost of ownership over a realistic holding period is calculated and shown beside the purchase price, given that this is the number a buyer needs and never receives; so the exit routes are described accurately, including whether the operator will take the interest back, whether resale markets exist and at what prices interests actually change hands, as this is the disclosure the sector most avoids and the one buyers most need; so the position on inheritance is stated plainly, since an interest passing to children with an ongoing liability is the outcome families are angriest about; so the booking reality is described with what availability is actually like in the weeks people want; and so the cooling-off period and how to use it is stated prominently rather than technically. Disclosure written this way loses some sales and produces owners who do not become complainants.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including contracts, fee documentation and owner correspondence. We are editors rather than legal or consumer advisers, and we offer no view on contracts, fees or consumers' rights. What we can do is put the ongoing cost and the exit beside the purchase price.