DVC plans to target commercial renters

[DonMacGregor]

My point was to get vast majority people out of the weeds and realize this isn't going to impact them.

The people negatively impacted by this (unless maybe you are selling your contract) are the ones who already know what they are doing is over the line but do anyways as they figure they wont get caught.

1000% (and we OFTEN disagree).

 

[DonMacGregor]

Coming down the pike though-

View attachment 925370

States are fighting to get their tax dollars back. Vacation rentals on advertising platforms. DVC rental brokers/websites?

I'd get ready for an onslaught of arguments as to why that bill has zero to do in any way shape or form possible with any of the current rental listing sites. The pretzel logic will require new levels of mental yoga warmups.

"Advertising platforms"...hmmmm.

 

[lowlight]

As a resale purchaser I wonder how much if any amount commercial renters drove up the sales price of resale contracts?

If there are who knows how many commercial renters driven out of the business does that substantially reduce resale contract prices?

Does it impact the prices enough to put pressure on Disney's direct prices to some extent?

Not only did they drive up the resales price, they have been artificially suppressing the dollar per point the average owner gets when they need to rent.

 

[Genie+]

I'd get ready for an onslaught of arguments as to why that bill has zero to do in any way shape or form possible with any of the current rental listing sites. The pretzel logic will require new levels of mental yoga warmups.

"Advertising platforms"...hmmmm.

You got me to rethink that lol. I forgot that dues already pay those kind of taxes.

 

[Brian Noble]

You keep saying this as if it’s a fact. The truth is, many of us want it to be more onerous to rent.

And many (I would venture to say most) owners in other systems that have made it more onerous either don’t care or welcome the change.

I don’t see any fundamental reason why this would be different with DVC.

 

[DonMacGregor]

You got me to rethink that lol. I forgot that dues already pay those kind of taxes.

I believe the taxes referenced are sales taxes. Now, SB 280 was vetoed by the governor, but it was sent back to the rules committee with a message regarding the veto. As far as I can tell, it isn't dead and is being reconsidered (likely with revisions based on the veto message). By the vote counts, it was reasonably close to a veto-proof majority in the Senate, but by a far lesser margin in the House, so who knows what could happen with revisions.

 

[Nabas]

And many (I would venture to say most) owners in other systems that have made it more onerous either don’t care or welcome the change.

I don’t see any fundamental reason why this would be different with DVC.

I certainly would like it to be more difficult to rent, but I also have adult children who love using my extra points!

 

[nalababybear]

My point was to get vast majority people out of the weeds and realize this isn't going to impact them.

The people negatively impacted by this (unless maybe you are selling your contract) are the ones who already know what they are doing is over the line but do anyways as they figure they wont get caught.

Do you know Disney's plans? We sure don't -- hence we do not know the potential impact and all the consternation up thread.

It's not a matter of being caught. They aren't doing anything illegal or secretly. It's quite out in the open and Disney knows full well who are doing what.

It's a matter of what Disney wants to do. They hold all the cards. Defining and enforcement.

Just like street side vendors, if the City wants to do something about it -- not much vendors can do but to adjust.

 

[Chuck S]

If the Dis really wanted to discourage spec renting, they would just not allow it. Instead they charge for it.

If a member has an existing reservation that they booked in the 11 month window has a medical issue, and they can't go, and they decide to rent out that reservation...is that a spec rental? If that same owner had multiple reservation booked, and found they couldn't go, are those spec rentals? And how would you, or anyone else, including the DIS know? For instance, when my Mom passed, we had a reservation booked a few months in the future. If I had offered that reservation for rental, would you consider that a spec rental? If it was beyond my banking window, I certainly would've tried to rent it out.

And think about this, if DVC decides to dedicate more resources to policing rentals, considering they are limited to 12% management fees, where are those resources coming from? They will be pulling CMs from Member Services, chat, Member Accounting (responsible for adding new and resale contractss to the system) and special reservations, like when they dedicate a day to member cruise reservations. Increasing phone hold times, and reducing services to ALL DVC members.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Remember the rules here, if you've read them, it is $125 for ONE spec rental per year, or $250 for a maximum of 3 Spec Rentals per year. AND all threads on the Rental Board are only open for one month. It is highly doubtful a "commercial renter" will bother with that, considereing they need to also check their thread or PMs for inquiries about renting their reservation. Would you bother renting here if you were a commercial renter with (what people here tend to believe) every value and standard studio booked? You really think that doesn't discourage commercial renters from listing here?

As @Nabas helpfully posted above, commercial renters are anybody doing it for a profit, including the owner that bought 500 points and rents 300 of them in BWV standard studio spec rentals each year at $35/pt to pay for their own WDW trip. $250 takes a significant bite of the profit margin, but not enough to seriously discourage it if it’s a long stay.

I think everyone is concentrated on the wrong thing:

The question is are you allowed to have a friend use your DVC points for a stay?


If you answer yes - you are fine and will never get stopped from renting (as long as its not spec rentals and is of very low volume 1 or 2 per year)

If you answer no - then I would want you to point out where in my DVC contract it states I can't have a reservation under someone else's name (I dont care about a specific Florida law possibly allowing restrictions because the law is there to enforce my contract in this instance)

EDIT: to clarify this does not mean someone doing 5/10/20/50 different reservations for random people won't be found and stopped. I am talking about you giving away a random reservation or renting out 150 points you wont be using one year.

I tend to agree with this, a few stays a year in other people’s name is unlikely to rise eyebrows unless they are spec rentals or exclusively target high value rentals generally.

As a resale purchaser I wonder how much if any amount commercial renters drove up the sales price of resale contracts?

If there are who knows how many commercial renters driven out of the business does that substantially reduce resale contract prices?

Does it impact the prices enough to put pressure on Disney's direct prices to some extent?

Absolutely commercial renters increased prices of resale contracts AND did a lot of stripping and flipping. I do think the main reason Disney hasn’t taken action yet is that they didn’t want prices to crash around the time they were trying to move millions of PVB points at $200/point. They may try to softly roll out enforcement for this reason, starting with only a few big, known renters before determining if they want to go after mom and pop commercial renters.

For reference, the legal definition of “commercial purposes” (source: Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School):

used for commercial purposes​

(10) Used for commercial purposes .— The term “used for commercial purposes” means the carriage of persons or property for any fare, fee, rate, charge or other consideration, or directly or indirectly in connection with any business, or other undertaking intended for profit.

Exactly— Disney has a lot of leeway to stop commercial renting for profit, I think they have much less leeway to stop people from renting for approximately their cost of ownership.

Put me in the camp that supports rental flexibility outside of high demand rooms/seasons and firmly against bots and LLC's. I am not going to be chasing those hard to get rooms anytime soon due to the size of my travel party(s) but I can understand people's frustration.

This seems like an ideal middle ground that should work for everyone who isn’t trying to profit off their points and only occasionally needs to dispose of extras.

I certainly would like it to be more difficult to rent, but I also have adult children who love using my extra points!

Are you charging them $25/night? Lol.

 

[nalababybear]

You keep saying this as if it’s a fact. The truth is, many of us want it to be more onerous to rent.

Define many.

 

[Sandisw]

You keep saying this as if it’s a fact. The truth is, many of us want it to be more onerous to rent.

I don’t know how you know that…the vast majority of owners don’t frequent message boards nor do they frequent rental sites…

Still comes down to what do those of us involved in the conversation see as the threshold between what falls under the personal use column of renting and what makes it commercial. That is where people fall here.

No one says people should be allowed to run a business and DVC should enforce that clause of the contract…but while some may see certain actions as out of bounds, others do not.

And that is what DVC gets to decide…what would be a reasonable pattern of activity that most would be able to say, “yes, that makes sense”.

Obviously they can try and find a way to make anything sound plausible…..but they definitely know that owners will be expecting that rules are reasonable.

That is the standard I want to see, even though I don’t rent my points. I do not want DvC deciding why I booked a room and now advertised it for rent…

The good news is that the words “pattern of rental activity” make it pretty easier for DVC to use that as a guide when deciding…spec renting a high demand room once a year? Don’t see that as commercial purpose….rent a lot high demand rooms regularly, year after year, then I think once can say there is a pattern…

 

[nalababybear]

And many (I would venture to say most) owners in other systems that have made it more onerous either don’t care or welcome the change.

I don’t see any fundamental reason why this would be different with DVC.

OTOH - many DVC owners aren't typical timeshare owners either. We certainly aren't.

My parents were and we had to deal with their property, exchanges, changes, and ultimately the difficult exit.

DVC is more the exception than the rule. If Disney wants to be like other timeshares, have at it. I don't think it's something to aspire toward.

 

[AstroBlasters]

Fighting Disney will be an uphill battle.

Disney proposes enforces the existing POS. Having a rule limiting commercial renting is not an unusual restriction.

Florida Statute 721.13(12)(a) delegates to Disney (and any timeshare “managing entity”) the authority to manage reservations as long as they do so “in the best interests of the owners as a whole”. According to Disney, there are only a few commercial renters. These few are affecting many other DVC members. Enforcing the POS rule on commercial renting is in the best interests of owners as a whole.

Many timeshares already successfully enforce renting restrictions and, as far as I know, no one has successfully won against them in court.

IMO, anyone fighting Disney on this is throwing away money.

I guess this is bad news for those who want policies that are worse for the entire membership just so they can get their way..

 

[AstroBlasters]

You keep saying this as if it’s a fact. The truth is, many of us want it to be more onerous to rent.

I think the words “many” and “more onerous” are open to debate.

 

[drusba]

I sometimes return to this thread and keep seeing posts that generally indicate a lack of understanding of the rules relating to member rentals of the WDW DVC resorts, despite that I have mentioned those a number of times before.

For example, many keep saying that what is prohibited is any "commercial purpose," despite that all the pre-Riviera resorts have a stated restriction which provides that a member is prohibited from engaging in a pattern of rental activity that the association could reasonably find shows that the member is engaging in a "commercial enterprise," a term that has a different meaning than just "commercial purpose"; a commercial enterprise as used in statutes means a person or entity that is in the "business" of doing something. Doing rentals to offset dues, to use points when you cannot use them (even for a whole year), doing occasional rentals to gain a little profit are not activities that show a member is acting as a business to do rentals. DVC itself recognized that reality when it adopted a rule in 2008 that said a member would be presumed to be violating the rental rule if he did more than 20 reservations in a year, and even then the member could show the member was, in fact, not violating the applicable rental restriction.

And, among other things, members above assert, and others agree, that DVC could adopt rules limiting the number of times a member could rent to a low number; that it could further limit the right a member has to rent by limiting rentals to reservations made at 7-months out, or prohibit a member from ever changing the lead name in a reservation until 7-months out so the member could not do a rental of an already confirmed reservation until 7-months out; and that any of the new restrictions being suggested could easily be done because the actual Florida timeshare statute does not have terms specifically allowing rentals.

As I have noted before, such suggestions are not legally valid as to the WDW timeshares except arguably CFW, which itself actually has a lot of rental rules and restrictions in its POS that did not exist before. CFW is, like the other resorts, a timeshare resort. However, unlike all the other Florida DVC resorts, it is not a condominium resort, and. all the other Florida DVC resorts are condominium resorts to which the condominium law applies.

Under condominium law, there can be many restrictions created to limit an owner's ability to rent and those can be set out in the original declarations provided when the resort first goes on sale. However, the suggestions made by posters above to create new restrictions to rentals have a major problem under condominium law. The condominium statute prohibits adding restrictions that would further reduce the ability of an owner to rent after a resort has actually first been sold, absent having an actual vote of the owners on any such new restrictions, and then, even if the restrictions are adopted, all those who vote against the changes do not have to follow the changes made. Fl. Stat. §718.110(13). Moreover, DVC/DVD itself recognizes it cannot unilaterally make changes to the right to rent that is provided in the declarations, as the declarations provide, that, though DVD can make changes, it cannot make any changes to the material rights of the members absent a member vote.

Many speculate as to how major a problem rentals might be to members getting reservations. I do not know the answer. From what I have seen at a few major rental sites, like the DVC Rental Store, a sponsor of this site, the issue might be overblown. The "rental" problem would principally be one of members reserving at 11-months out rooms that can usually be difficult to get at 11-months out for the applicable times. Such rooms include a number of studios: (a) BWV view standard view year round and boardwalk view in the fall season, (b) AKV value and club level year round; (c) BLT standard view in the fall season and about 60% of the rest of the year; (d) Riviera tower and standard view number of times in the fall season and about 40% of the time the rest of the year; (e) VGF Deluxe Studios at times during the fall season and sometimes during the rest of the year, and Resort Studios during real high demand times in the fall season (not, however, the issue with resort studios appears to be getting better swith the existence of the Resort Studios); (f) CCV studios sometimes during the fall, season. Some have asserted BCV also has the issue, but it has been rare for it, only sometimes during the first two weeks of Dec and time around NYE and even that does not occur every year. Several months ago, I went through a list of confirmed reservations being offered for rental by the DVC Rental Store. Out of a list of many hundreds, I could find only about ten reservations that indicated rentals being offered for studios and times that are difficult to get at 11-months out. That may be partly due to the fact that even the renters cannot get them at 11-months out, but about 40% of the rentals offered were for rooms with times usually open at 7-months out, and almost all the others were for rooms with times that could usually be gotten by any owner of a resort at 11-months out.

Also, as I have noted before, DVC has available methods of greatly reducing the rental problem, if there is one, that would be valid methods without violating the existing laws or rules. Walking is something that may contribute to professional renters locking in difficult to get reservations. DVC could easily do away with walking as it currently exists by simply re-adopting the rule that existed before June 2008 -- a member could reserve 11/7 months out from date of "departure" from a DVC Resort.

Also, if the issue is that DVC does not have information from which it can determine whether a member is doing multiple rentals (rather than just multiple reservations), it could start enforcing an existing rule contained in the Home Resort Rules and Regulations, which actually requires any member who rents to inform DVC at the time of the reservation that it is a rental, Home Resort Rules and Regulations §V.3.b, which is apparently a rule ignored by almost every renter. Such information is needed to assure other rules are not being violated, such as the prohibition to using banked or borrowed points in a rental reservation, and, if transferred points are being used in the reservation, it could request the member to confirm that he paid no compensation to another member to get such points.. To enforce that rule, DVC could clarify that the failure to provide that a reservation is a rental will result in its cancellation if DVC learns it is a rental, with the member being prohibited from doing any more rentals for some stated period of time, and even thereafter being required in writing to confirm whether any reservation is a rental. Moreover, a member would have to think twice about ignoring the rule, i.e., if the member fails to tell the lessee that he needs to inform DVC of the rental to avoid possible cancellation, and cancellation does later occur, the lessee would have a case for fraud, with the possibility of collecting punitive damages.

As to particular times periods of high demand, e.g., Christmas week, Thanksgiving time, first two weeks of December, DVC could create Special Season Preference Lists (see §III.10. of the Home Resort Rules and Regulations)., under which it would allow members to apply for 11-month out reservations well before 11-months out, and then assign reservations to those who applied at about 12-months out in the order of the requests made until the rooms were filled, and any member would be limited to making only one requested reservation. That rule was actually applied in the 1990s to Christmas week.

 

[nalababybear]

I sometimes return to this thread and keep seeing posts that generally indicate a lack of understanding of the rules relating to member rentals of the WDW DVC resorts, despite that I have mentioned those a number of times before.

For example, many keep saying that what is prohibited is any "commercial purpose," despite that all the pre-Riviera resorts have a stated restriction which provides that a member is prohibited from engaging in a pattern of rental activity that the association could reasonably find shows that the member is engaging in a "commercial enterprise," a term that has a different meaning than just "commercial purpose"; a commercial enterprise as used in statutes means a person or entity that is in the "business" of doing something. Doing rentals to offset dues, to use points when you cannot use them (even for a whole year), doing occasional rentals to gain a little profit are not activities that show a member is acting as a business to do rentals. DVC itself recognized that reality when it adopted a rule in 2008 that said a member would be presumed to be violating the rental rule if he did more than 20 reservations in a year, and even then the member could show the member was, in fact, not violating the applicable rental restriction.

And, among other things, members above assert, and others agree, that DVC could adopt rules limiting the number of times a member could rent to a low number; that it could further limit the right a member has to rent by limiting rentals to reservations made at 7-months out, or prohibit a member from ever changing the lead name in a reservation until 7-months out so the member could not do a rental of an already confirmed reservation until 7-months out; and that any of the new restrictions being suggested could easily be done because the actual Florida timeshare statute does not have terms specifically allowing rentals.

As I have noted before, such suggestions are not legally valid as to the WDW timeshares except arguably CFW, which itself actually has a lot of rental rules and restrictions in its POS that did not exist before. CFW is, like the other resorts, a timeshare resort. However, unlike all the other Florida DVC resorts, it is not a condominium resort, and. all the other Florida DVC resorts are condominium resorts to which the condominium law applies.

Under condominium law, there can be many restrictions created to limit an owner's ability to rent and those can be set out in the original declarations provided when the resort first goes on sale. However, the suggestions made by posters above to create new restrictions to rentals have a major problem under condominium law. The condominium statute prohibits adding restrictions that would further reduce the ability of an owner to rent after a resort has actually first been sold, absent having an actual vote of the owners on any such new restrictions, and then, even if the restrictions are adopted, all those who vote against the changes do not have to follow the changes made. Fl. Stat. §718.110(13). Moreover, DVC/DVD itself recognizes it cannot unilaterally make changes to the right to rent that is provided in the declarations, as the declarations provide, that, though DVD can make changes, it cannot make any changes to the material rights of the members absent a member vote.

Many speculate as to how major a problem rentals might be to members getting reservations. I do not know the answer. From what I have seen at a few major rental sites, like the DVC Rental Store, a sponsor of this site, the issue might be overblown. The "rental" problem would principally be one of members reserving at 11-months out rooms that can usually be difficult to get at 11-months out for the applicable times. Such rooms include a number of studios: (a) BWV view standard view year round and boardwalk view in the fall season, (b) AKV value and club level year round; (c) BLT standard view in the fall season and about 60% of the rest of the year; (d) Riviera tower and standard view number of times in the fall season and about 40% of the time the rest of the year; (e) VGF Deluxe Studios at times during the fall season and sometimes during the rest of the year, and Resort Studios during real high demand times in the fall season (not, however, the issue with resort studios appears to be getting better swith the existence of the Resort Studios); (f) CCV studios sometimes during the fall, season. Some have asserted BCV also has the issue, but it has been rare for it, only sometimes during the first two weeks of Dec and time around NYE and even that does not occur every year. Several months ago, I went through a list of confirmed reservations being offered for rental by the DVC Rental Store. Out of a list of many hundreds, I could find only about ten reservations that indicated rentals being offered for studios and times that are difficult to get at 11-months out. That may be partly due to the fact that even the renters cannot get them at 11-months out, but about 40% of the rentals offered were for rooms with times usually open at 7-months out, and almost all the others were for rooms with times that could usually be gotten by any owner of a resort at 11-months out.

Also, as I have noted before, DVC has available methods of greatly reducing the rental problem, if there is one, that would be valid methods without violating the existing laws or rules. Walking is something that may contribute to professional renters locking in difficult to get reservations. DVC could easily do away with walking as it currently exists by simply re-adopting the rule that existed before June 2008 -- a member could reserve 11/7 months out from date of "departure" from a DVC Resort.

Also, if the issue is that DVC does not have information from which it can determine whether a member is doing multiple rentals (rather than just multiple reservations), it could start enforcing an existing rule contained in the Home Resort Rules and Regulations, which actually requires any member who rents to inform DVC at the time of the reservation that it is a rental, Home Resort Rules and Regulations §V.3.b, which is apparently a rule ignored by almost every renter. Such information is needed to assure other rules are not being violated, such as the prohibition to using banked or borrowed points in a rental reservation, and, if transferred points are being used in the reservation, it could request the member to confirm that he paid no compensation to another member to get such points.. To enforce that rule, DVC could clarify that the failure to provide that a reservation is a rental will result in its cancellation if DVC learns it is a rental, with the member being prohibited from doing any more rentals for some stated period of time, and even thereafter being required in writing to confirm whether any reservation is a rental. Moreover, a member would have to think twice about ignoring the rule, i.e., if the member fails to tell the lessee that he needs to inform DVC of the rental to avoid possible cancellation, and cancellation does later occur, the lessee would have a case for fraud, with the possibility of collecting punitive damages.

As to particular times periods of high demand, e.g., Christmas week, Thanksgiving time, first two weeks of December, DVC could create Special Season Preference Lists (see §III.10. of the Home Resort Rules and Regulations)., under which it would allow members to apply for 11-month out reservations well before 11-months out, and then assign reservations to those who applied at about 12-months out in the order of the requests made until the rooms were filled, and any member would be limited to making only one requested reservation. That rule was actually applied in the 1990s to Christmas week.

Great primer - much appreciated.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

I sometimes return to this thread and keep seeing posts that generally indicate a lack of understanding of the rules relating to member rentals of the WDW DVC resorts, despite that I have mentioned those a number of times before.

For example, many keep saying that what is prohibited is any "commercial purpose," despite that all the pre-Riviera resorts have a stated restriction which provides that a member is prohibited from engaging in a pattern of rental activity that the association could reasonably find shows that the member is engaging in a "commercial enterprise," a term that has a different meaning than just "commercial purpose"; a commercial enterprise as used in statutes means a person or entity that is in the "business" of doing something. Doing rentals to offset dues, to use points when you cannot use them (even for a whole year), doing occasional rentals to gain a little profit are not activities that show a member is acting as a business to do rentals. DVC itself recognized that reality when it adopted a rule in 2008 that said a member would be presumed to be violating the rental rule if he did more than 20 reservations in a year, and even then the member could show the member was, in fact, not violating the applicable rental restriction.

And, among other things, members above assert, and others agree, that DVC could adopt rules limiting the number of times a member could rent to a low number; that it could further limit the right a member has to rent by limiting rentals to reservations made at 7-months out, or prohibit a member from ever changing the lead name in a reservation until 7-months out so the member could not do a rental of an already confirmed reservation until 7-months out; and that any of the new restrictions being suggested could easily be done because the actual Florida timeshare statute does not have terms specifically allowing rentals.

As I have noted before, such suggestions are not legally valid as to the WDW timeshares except arguably CFW, which itself actually has a lot of rental rules and restrictions in its POS that did not exist before. CFW is, like the other resorts, a timeshare resort. However, unlike all the other Florida DVC resorts, it is not a condominium resort, and. all the other Florida DVC resorts are condominium resorts to which the condominium law applies.

Under condominium law, there can be many restrictions created to limit an owner's ability to rent and those can be set out in the original declarations provided when the resort first goes on sale. However, the suggestions made by posters above to create new restrictions to rentals have a major problem under condominium law. The condominium statute prohibits adding restrictions that would further reduce the ability of an owner to rent after a resort has actually first been sold, absent having an actual vote of the owners on any such new restrictions, and then, even if the restrictions are adopted, all those who vote against the changes do not have to follow the changes made. Fl. Stat. §718.110(13). Moreover, DVC/DVD itself recognizes it cannot unilaterally make changes to the right to rent that is provided in the declarations, as the declarations provide, that, though DVD can make changes, it cannot make any changes to the material rights of the members absent a member vote.

Many speculate as to how major a problem rentals might be to members getting reservations. I do not know the answer. From what I have seen at a few major rental sites, like the DVC Rental Store, a sponsor of this site, the issue might be overblown. The "rental" problem would principally be one of members reserving at 11-months out rooms that can usually be difficult to get at 11-months out for the applicable times. Such rooms include a number of studios: (a) BWV view standard view year round and boardwalk view in the fall season, (b) AKV value and club level year round; (c) BLT standard view in the fall season and about 60% of the rest of the year; (d) Riviera tower and standard view number of times in the fall season and about 40% of the time the rest of the year; (e) VGF Deluxe Studios at times during the fall season and sometimes during the rest of the year, and Resort Studios during real high demand times in the fall season (not, however, the issue with resort studios appears to be getting better swith the existence of the Resort Studios); (f) CCV studios sometimes during the fall, season. Some have asserted BCV also has the issue, but it has been rare for it, only sometimes during the first two weeks of Dec and time around NYE and even that does not occur every year. Several months ago, I went through a list of confirmed reservations being offered for rental by the DVC Rental Store. Out of a list of many hundreds, I could find only about ten reservations that indicated rentals being offered for studios and times that are difficult to get at 11-months out. That may be partly due to the fact that even the renters cannot get them at 11-months out, but about 40% of the rentals offered were for rooms with times usually open at 7-months out, and almost all the others were for rooms with times that could usually be gotten by any owner of a resort at 11-months out.

Also, as I have noted before, DVC has available methods of greatly reducing the rental problem, if there is one, that would be valid methods without violating the existing laws or rules. Walking is something that may contribute to professional renters locking in difficult to get reservations. DVC could easily do away with walking as it currently exists by simply re-adopting the rule that existed before June 2008 -- a member could reserve 11/7 months out from date of "departure" from a DVC Resort.

Also, if the issue is that DVC does not have information from which it can determine whether a member is doing multiple rentals (rather than just multiple reservations), it could start enforcing an existing rule contained in the Home Resort Rules and Regulations, which actually requires any member who rents to inform DVC at the time of the reservation that it is a rental, Home Resort Rules and Regulations §V.3.b, which is apparently a rule ignored by almost every renter. Such information is needed to assure other rules are not being violated, such as the prohibition to using banked or borrowed points in a rental reservation, and, if transferred points are being used in the reservation, it could request the member to confirm that he paid no compensation to another member to get such points.. To enforce that rule, DVC could clarify that the failure to provide that a reservation is a rental will result in its cancellation if DVC learns it is a rental, with the member being prohibited from doing any more rentals for some stated period of time, and even thereafter being required in writing to confirm whether any reservation is a rental. Moreover, a member would have to think twice about ignoring the rule, i.e., if the member fails to tell the lessee that he needs to inform DVC of the rental to avoid possible cancellation, and cancellation does later occur, the lessee would have a case for fraud, with the possibility of collecting punitive damages.

As to particular times periods of high demand, e.g., Christmas week, Thanksgiving time, first two weeks of December, DVC could create Special Season Preference Lists (see §III.10. of the Home Resort Rules and Regulations)., under which it would allow members to apply for 11-month out reservations well before 11-months out, and then assign reservations to those who applied at about 12-months out in the order of the requests made until the rooms were filled, and any member would be limited to making only one requested reservation. That rule was actually applied in the 1990s to Christmas week.

What are you basing your extremely narrow definition of “commercial enterprise” upon? Everything hinges on that and you seem to have concluded that it can be defined differently than its ordinary meaning under FL law. Routinely renting for profit is an enterprise based on most states’ common law interpretations, even if a layperson doesn’t think of their own little side hustle as an enterprise.

I agree that occasional rentals (even with some income beyond costs) are not a commercial enterprise, but I would bet my law degree that you cannot point to anything establishing than an annual pattern of intended, predictable profit is not a commercial enterprise in most states in America. I am not a FL lawyer so I will defer to anybody who can point to a FL statute or case that somehow establishes you can set out to make an annual profit from an initial outlay of capital each year without becoming an enterprise so long as it doesn’t reach a certain technical hurdle.

 

[MerlinandtheMouse]

I guess this is bad news for those who want policies that are worse for the entire membership just so they can get their way..

Just to point out, this statement could be defense for either side of this argument. Everyone wants what will benefit them most, no one is out here working altruistically for the great good of DVC members as a whole.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Just to point out, this statement could be defense for either side of this argument. Everyone wants what will benefit them most, no one is out here working altruistically for the great good of DVC members as a whole.

I don’t think that’s entirely fair— like probably fair as applied to moi, but I’ve seen @Sandisw on multiple threads say she doesn’t walk or commercially rent or spec rent but doesn’t want to lose flexibility for the membership at large.

Having said that, I do think most owners at least tell ourselves that what we want is also best for the members at large…and at least some of us are right. In this case, it’s pretty clear that stopping sophisticated (large) commercial entities from spec renting would benefit members as a whole — both by increasing room availability at 11mo and by raising the average rental/transfer per point rate.