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Understanding a developer estoppels form can be very confusing to consumers. Industry specific terms may be unfamiliar even to long time timeshare owners. It's very important, however, to ensure that you fully understand what type of Wyndham Vacation Club timeshare points are going to be transferred to you at closing- and how the usage of those available points can be impacted by the point designations shown.
During the closing process, your title agent or attorney should send you a completed estoppels form. This is also commonly referred to as an ownership and account verification form. An estoppels for a timeshare ownership is quite different from the estoppels request common to traditional real estate. For a residential closing, the estoppels would basically contain loan payoff and financial information from the current mortgage company. In a timeshare closing, the estoppels should provide you with a complete explanation and confirmation not only of the financial status of the property being puchased, but should also provide you with a clear picture of the ownership details of the interval and unit being transferred.
For Wyndham Vacation Ownership transfers, the terminology used on estoppels forms is specific to this timeshare developer. There are five ways points can be classified on an estoppels:
1. Regular Use Points - These are the traditional allotment of points given on the owner's use year anniversary. These points expire on the next anniversary date. Deeded weeks that have been converted to Fairshare or Wyndham points will have the anniversary of Jan 1st each year. the use year anniversaries will vary for all UDI contracts (purchased as points and the deed itself shows the point allotment instead of a week and unit).
2. PIC points - These are Personal Interval Choice points which are given for a non-Fairfield or Wyndham resort week which is deposited into the owners Wyndham points account. The owners must have paid a PIC enrollment fee for each non-Wyndham ownership in order to have this opportunity. Points begin the day the deposit is acknowledged by Wyndham and expire one year later. PIC privileges do not transfer on the resale or secondary market.
3. Credit Pool Points - Owners can bank Regular Use Points that they do not plan to use during their usage year. Standard owners must notify Wyndham of their intention to bank their upcoming year's points prior to the beginning of their use year. In other words, they must bank their point allotment before it is received into their account. Gold level and higher VIP owners (VIP privileges do not transfer on the resale or secondary market) can deposit as late as six months after their use year begins. Credit pool points will expire three years after the date of deposit. Credit pool points do transfer to a new buyer via a resale or secondary market transaction.
4. Canceled points - These points result from a reservation that is canceled more than thirty days prior to the check-in date. These points must be used before the end of the current use year and they cannot be cannot be banked into a future use year (even if the VIP level would allow banking for regular use points). canceled points can be banked into an independent exchange system if there are enough points to reserve a full week, which is then deposited into the independent exchange. If there are not enough canceled points to reserve a full week, then the points must be used withing the Wyndham system before the use year expires or they are lost.
5. Limited points - These points result from a reservation that is canceled thirty days prior (or less) to the check-in date. Limited points can only be used to book reservations up to 30 days in advance of the requested dates. These points must be used before the end of the current use year and they cannot be cannot be banked into a future use year. Generally, because of the limited time between the reservation and usage- these points must be used within the Wyndham system and cannot normally be deposited into a third party exchange. Limited points are generally considered to have very little value on the resale market.
Before finalizing any closing, you should always ensure that the estoppels matches up with the original purchase and sale contract- and that you will be receiving the point classification you expect.
