Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
Three friends and I reside in California; we went to Vegas and purchased a timeshare. The timeshare is about $10,000. The sales agent said our payment plan is for 5 years, told us to lie about our income to get a credit approval, and finalized our paperwork, and gave us our paperwork to take home. We trusted the sales agent's words, but about a month later, we looked at our terms, and we actually signed up for a 10 yr plan, plus we had not known about the heavy interest since they never mentioned it to us. We do not want to commit to this because we were told lies.
Is there a way out of this contract? As far as I have read our paperwork, the only way out is: 1) We cannot finance the purchase of the timeshare because we are not approved of enough credit. 2) We default our payments and breach the agreement.
I was thinking in the case of #1, perhaps I can get my credit approval reconsidered and disapproved, in which case, may void my credit approval, and thus, void my contract?
2 Answers from Attorneys
well, to start with, getting your credit reconsidered and "disapproved" is not a procedure that is at all likely to result in any contract you signed being voided; at most, you could be setting yourself up for fraud charges. Probably #2 is your better alternative, but before defaulting, look at the various timeshare financial solutions Web sites on the Internet. This is an extremely common problem and there is a lot of practical vs. law-school theory advice available out there on the Web. I would also suggest considering whether the sales agent's actions are sufficiently provable so that maybe you could consider some legal action against him/her, e.g. a complaint to the state real-estate licensing authority.
While it is true that a timeshare contract is a binding legal document, it is often mistakenly thought that such a contract cannot only be cancelled. In fact, most timeshare companies maintain that their contracts are non � cancellable. This misconception is perpetuated by timeshare companies and user groups that are funded, maintained and controlled by the timeshare industry.
The truth of the matter is, that under the law, contracts are cancellable for a variety of reasons, including fraud and mistake.
Moreover, a person who is burdened by the obligations of a contract may "terminate" it and no longer be bound by the contract for reasons other than breach.
More information on this subject can be obtained by visiting the website
www.timesharelegalaction.com
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