DVC plans to target commercial renters

[Cyberc1978]

It's not all about you or me, it's about the membership at large and what is best for all interested parties - including, yes, DVC and Disney in general.

With emphasis on the latter

 

[Sandisw]

If they use only the number/% of points a a determining factor, then it wouldn't matter as you say. But we are just saying that they CAN use other factors like the type of room being rented if they wish to use them as a factor. They can even use it to change the quantitative measures used depending on resort owned and which rooms are rented.

They may decide that a member who owns at VGF who owns 2000 points but rents out an average of 1000 per year is fine.

They may decide that a member who owns at BWV who owns and rents the same amount of points is NOT fine..

They may also decide that another owner who owns at BWV who owns the same number of points, but rents out a smaller percentage per year, but consistently does so in ONLY Standard View rooms at very popular times is NOT fine.

They can choose to look at different resorts and different booking/renting behavior in different ways.

If they see it as being easier to make a big profit if you own BWV vs owning VGF, then they may look at BWV owners more strictly

AND if they see it as being easier to make a large profit when you book and rent standard view rooms vs P/G rooms, then they may be more strict with owners doing that as well. If you try to send them a lawsuit, their lawyers will say that these rooms are historically more likely to bring a larger profit and led us to feel that they were being used in a commercial enterprise.

ANYTHING you do when you buy/book/rent can be used as a data point. And if they look at a membership and decide it is likely being run as a commercial enterprise, then that is the end of it. DVC gets to decide the different parts of the pattern they want to look at, not us.

You may be able to argue that it could easier for them to just look at point totals/percent rented to decide who they feel is running a commercial enterprise, sure. But it is VERY hard to argue that they CANNOT use the other parts of the patterns if they wish to.

What they CAN do and what they WILL do can be very different lists.

And that is where we fundamentally disagree for the pre RIV resorts. I believe that the the declarations being exactly the same for all pre RiV resorts, requires them to use the same reasonable conclusions that you are a commercial enterprise.

Even if you want to say that each resort could be treated differently, the owners at that resort should expect that the same standards apply.... and I just don't see that calling one owner a commercial enterprise because they rent fewer rooms than someone else at the resort, but the rooms they choose are popular, is a reasonable....and the discretion they apply needs to be reasonable.

I contend that the words "pattern of rental activity" plus the interpretation in 2008 support that resorts don't matter and what does is the volume of rentals that is occuring has to reach a certain level before you can even consider that the owner is renting in a way that leads one to believe they are a commercial enterprise.

Again, when DVC looks at reservations on an owners account to view reservations, I simply do not believe they can say...oh wait, this owner has booked a lot of BWV standard rooms but since they are all for themselves, its okay....but look at this other owner, they too only book BWV standard view rooms, but some are in the name of others, and since those can earn more money, we can say they are a commercial enterprise..and that it is reasonable for us to do that.....

And that is why I will come back to the point that I do not believe they can look at the type of room and use it as a determining factor in whether one is using the membership as a commerical enterprise....because I think that the commercial enterprise aspect is critical to the decision....and in the context of renting out a condominimum, meeting that threshold is much higher than say someone who might be selling purses on the internet.

Now, if the contracts said renters are not allowed under the personal use clause, I am more in line with your thinking because then DVC can consider every rental in their evaluation..

But, personal use clause includes owners, guests, and renters.....that tells me that owners are allowed to book rooms for anyone in those three groups and that DVC can only begin to scrutinze the number of rentals when that number grows to what can be seen as a business.

You example seems to indicate that DVC could decide that an owner is prohibited from booking too many hard to get rooms simply because the profit can be more....well, does that mean I can rent them as long as I can provide DVC proof that I didn't rent them over market value?

Remember, there is a clause in the contract that also says that the "terms and conditions" of a rental are up to the owner. If DVC is now trying to use the rate an owner may potentially get for a specific reservation to consider them as renting as a business, then I see this as a conflict against this clause.....to me, terms and conditions include the rate one asks.

All of these examples that DVC can use room type or treat owners at BWV differently using subjective measures such as rate or view IMO do not pass the "reasonable" discretion requirement that is part of the declaration.

Obviously I do know that you are not saying DVC plans to do this, but I honeslty believe that DVC knows they can not do what some believe they can and that is why they did make the language of RIV and beyond stricter....

IMO, owners of the pre RIV resorts should hold DVC to a very high standard when it comes to enforcing that clause because for the RIV and beyond resorts, that clause has become much easier for DVC to define a commerical enterprise,

Of course, everything that people mention happen in the course of using your membership....advertising, where you find renters, what you rent and how you rent....they all play a role....but that is not the standard that DVC has to abide by.. they have to first reach the conclusion that you might be running DVC as a business, and that can only happen if you have too many renters, because some renters don't count!

Summing up for my last time....IMO, the contract language supports, and the 2008 interpretation used by DVC supports, that if you are not renting enough of your ownership every year (use the rolling 12 month period) that can be reasonable considered a business, then none of those other things can even be looked at until you do..because doing so makes DVC actions, IMO, unreasonable....unless you renting at RIV and beyond and then I think they can...

If DVC says you have a pattern of renting 90% of your points every year, we feel you are a commerical enterprise. Here is everything else we know about you that supports that assumption.....you advertise on a website, you book only hard to get rooms, you never have your own names on the reservations.....then I think that counts as a reasonable application.

If DVC says that we see that you advertise on a website and you book only hard to get rooms each year. Even though you may only be using 10% of our membership, we are going to cosnider this a commercial enterprise....then I think this counts as an unreasonable application that one is a commercial enterprise.....if one owns at a pre-RIV resort.

Think about it...having such a wide range of subjective decisions, what prevents DVC from allowing their friends and family to run a commerical enterprise at SSR because its a low demand, if those owners have a different standard? That is why I can't wrap my head around this.....

 

[muppets3d]

With emphasis on the latter

Goes without saying. Obviously, Disney feels like the DVC rental "industry" is affecting their cash bookings and that needs to stop.

 

[Sandisw]

The only people concerned with this are the ones worrying about how to continue to get away with being landlords.

Not true.

 

[Tatebeck]

And that is where we fundamentally disagree for the pre RIV resorts. I believe that the the declarations being exactly the same for all pre RiV resorts, requires them to use the same reasonable conclusions that you are a commercial enterprise.

Even if you want to say that each resort could be treated differently, the owners at that resort should expect that the same standards apply.... and I just don't see that calling one owner a commercial enterprise because they rent fewer rooms than someone else at the resort, but the rooms they choose are popular, is a reasonable....and the discretion they apply needs to be reasonable.

I contend that the words "pattern of rental activity" plus the interpretation in 2008 support that resorts don't matter and what does is the volume of rentals that is occuring has to reach a certain level before you can even consider that the owner is renting in a way that leads one to believe they are a commercial enterprise.

Again, when DVC looks at reservations on an owners account to view reservations, I simply do not believe they can say...oh wait, this owner has booked a lot of BWV standard rooms but since they are all for themselves, its okay....but look at this other owner, they too only book BWV standard view rooms, but some are in the name of others, that means they could be a business.

And that is why I will come back to the point that I do not believe they can look at the type of room and use it as a determining factor in whether one is using the membership as a commerical enterprise....because I think that the commercial enterprise aspect is critical to the decision....and in the context of renting out a condominimum, meeting that threshold is much higher than say someone who might be selling purses on the internet.

Now, if the contracts said renters are not allowed under the personal use clause, I am more in line with your thinking because then DVC can consider every rental in their evaluation..

But, personal use clause includes owners, guests, and renters.....that tells me that owners are allowed to book rooms for anyone in those three groups and that DVC can only begin to scrutinze the number of rentals when that number grows to what can be seen as a business.

You example seems to indicate that DVC could decide that an owner is prohibited from booking too many hard to get rooms simply because the profit can be more....well, does that mean I can rent them as long as I can provide DVC proof that I didn't rent them over market value?

Remember, there is a clause in the contract that also says that the "terms and conditions" of a rental are up to the owner. If DVC is now trying to use the rate an owner may potentially get for a specific reservation to consider them as renting as a business, then I see this as a conflict against this clause.....to me, terms and conditions include the rate one asks.

All of these examples that DVC can use room type or treat owners at BWV differently using subjective measures such as rate or view IMO do not pass the "reasonable" discretion requirement that is part of the declaration.

Obviously I do know that you are not saying DVC plans to do this, but I honeslty believe that DVC knows they can not do what some believe they can and that is why they did make the language of RIV and beyond stricter....

IMO, owners of the pre RIV resorts should hold DVC to a very high standard when it comes to enforcing that clause because for the RIV and beyond resorts, that clause has become much easier for DVC to define a commerical enterprise,

ETA: And yes, everything that people mention happen in the course of using your membership....advertising, where you find renters, what you rent and how you rent....they all play a role....however, when it comes to hitting the threshold for what makes an owner shift, has to be applied to the situation in a reasonable way that leads most people to conclude that is using DVC as a commercial enterprise...which is why I keep saying that those can be used to enhance DVC's case....but they have to reach the conclusion first by looking at actions that most consider to be an owner runnning a business.

Summing up for my last time....IMO, the contract language supports, and the 2008 interpretation used by DVC supports, that if you are not renting enough of your ownership every year (use the rolling 12 month period) that can be reasonable considered a business, then none of those other things can even be looked at until you do..because doing so makes DVC actions, IMO, unreasonable....unless you renting at RIV and beyond and then I think they can...

If DVC says you have a pattern of renting 90% of your points every year, we feel you are a commerical enterprise. Here is everything else we know about you that supports that assumption.....you advertise on a website, you book only hard to get rooms, you never have your own names on the reservations.....then I think that counts as a reasonable application.

If DVC says that we see that you use a third party broker to rent confirmed reservations every year and those reservations are always hard to get rooms in December, and even though it accounts for only a small % of your ownership, we are going to consider you a business.....I consider that an unreasonable application of the clause.

From what I have seen, I do not believe they really changed the rules at RIV and CFW, they just gave more examples of things that may make something specifically against the rules.

If one contract says "The resort will always be closed from January 1st through January 31st" and a second contract says "The resort will always be closed from January 1st through January 31st, including January 2nd and January 3rd." then the rules didn't change, they just added more examples. The examples are inclusive, not exclusive. Just because they list some examples doesn't mean that any other examples can't fall within the definition as well. "The contract didn't say that it would be closed on January 4th!" is not a valid argument for the first or second fake contract.

Just like in DVC, from every single current document I have seen the foremost rule is that it is for personal use only, and rentals are allowed, but any pattern of rental activity that leads to DVC thinking (at their discretion) that you may be running a commercial enterprise may make DVC decide that you are now breaking the rules. It doesn't matter how many examples they give afterwards. ANYTHING you do that make a pattern that makes THEM THINK that you may be running a commercial enterprise is suspect, including which rooms you book/rent.

The 2008 20 reservation rule does not matter here at all, and I'm not sure why you keep bringing it back up. That does not exist anymore and even if it did, it again was just one example of a way you could run afoul of the rules. That rule did NOT say that as long as you were under 20 reservations, you could NEVER be suspected of being a commercial enterprise, just that they WOULD for sure check AFTER you got to 20 reservations. IE if you make 20 bookings, we WILL check, but if you make less than 20 they never said that they WOULDN'T check. They still could check if they felt other parts of the pattern leaned towards a commercial enterprise.

ANYTHING you do that DVC can reasonably think was done for more possible income from rentals is suspect to being part of the pattern. If you cannot glean that from the contract language then I do not know how to help you correctly interpret the contracts. All of the resorts can have the exact same rules, but what constitutes a pattern of rental activity indicative of a possible commercial enterprise may be different at different resorts or between different members, and then can then be treated differently because of that.

 

[Sandisw]

From what I have seen, I do not believe they really changed the rules at RIV and CFW, they just gave more examples of things that may make something specifically against the rules.

If one contract says "The resort will always be closed from January 1st through January 31st" and a second contract says "The resort will always be closed from January 1st through January 31st, including January 2nd and January 3rd." then the rules didn't change, they just added more examples. The examples are inclusive, not exclusive. Just because they list some examples doesn't mean that any other examples can't fall within the definition as well. "The contract didn't say that it would be closed on January 4th!" is not a valid argument for this fake contract.

Just like in DVC, from every single current document I have seen the foremost rule is that it is for personal use only, and rentals are allowed, but any pattern of rental activity that leads to DVC thinking (at their discretion) that you may be running a commercial enterprise may make DVC decide that you are now breaking the rules. It doesn't matter how many examples they give afterwards. ANYTHING you do that make a pattern that makes THEM THINK that you may be running a commercial enterprise is suspect, including which rooms you book/rent.

The 2008 20 reservation rule does not matter here at all, and I'm not sure why you keep bringing it back up. That does not exist anymore and even if it did, it again was just one example of a way you could run afoul of the rules. That rule did NOT say that as long as you were under 20 reservations, you could NEVER be suspected of being a commercial enterprise, just that they WOULD for sure check AFTER you got to 20 reservations. IE if you make 20 bookings, we WILL check, but if you make less than 20 they never said that they WOULDN'T check. They still could check if they felt other parts of the pattern leaned towards a commercial enterprise.

ANYTHING you do that DVC can reasonably think was done for more possible income from rentals is suspect. If you cannot glean that from the contract language then I do not know how to help you correctly interpret the contracts.

I see the addition of those qualifiers as material change to the rules because it changes the understanding of a buyer as to what DVC wants to use to determine a commercial enterprise.

And the reason is that we have a material right to rent as an owner as a condo unless the specific limitations are put in place before we buy

That is why the examples for the calendar don’t fit. Just like the word commercial doesn’t mean the same thing when selling goods and services and renting your ownership.

Vacation home or not, the standard is higher because of that right to rent.

So where you see commercial enterprise requirement as an example, I see it as a requirement.

For the pre RIV resorts, the words “pattern of activity” were not clear and that is why they needed to put out the 2008 commercial use interpretation.

Owners wanted and DVC provided rules…and those rules revolved around a quantity..and why I do think that is critical to any enforcement.

The conclusion has always been that you are a commercial enterprise and that whatever DVC uses to determine that must be reasonable.

People keep saying the 20 reservation threshold no longer exists. We don’t know that because DVC. never came out and said it does not.

Thst document did say that if you had more than 20 and couldn’t prove it wasn’t a business, then you’d keep the 20 but no more.

They stated nothing 20 and under would be canceled, which means, an owner could hold 20 reservations at any one time and not suffer any consequence

So, I still contend that a reasonable interpretation in the context of DVC and the intent of thst clause was to stop people from running a business and that when one was accused of it, a reasonable person could conclude it was.

What you are saying is not true…no where in the contract does it say that how much you make matters when they give owners the right to set terms. You can’t give someone the right to do something and then penalize them for doing something you don’t like.

If one wants to ignore the actual meaning of what a commercial enterprise is…and I think there were a lot of examples posted yesterday from statues and I didn’t get that any of them said the amount of profit matters.

Let’s leave it there because I do not think a commercial enterprise in the context of DVC can be met…and that is required…without a volume of rentals that one can reasonably conclude shifts you from having an acceptable number of renters and an unacceptable levels.

 

[JackosinDIS]

And that is where we fundamentally disagree for the pre RIV resorts. I believe that the the declarations being exactly the same for all pre RiV resorts, requires them to use the same reasonable conclusions that you are a commercial enterprise.

Even if you want to say that each resort could be treated differently, the owners at that resort should expect that the same standards apply.... and I just don't see that calling one owner a commercial enterprise because they rent fewer rooms than someone else at the resort, but the rooms they choose are popular, is a reasonable....and the discretion they apply needs to be reasonable.

I contend that the words "pattern of rental activity" plus the interpretation in 2008 support that resorts don't matter and what does is the volume of rentals that is occuring has to reach a certain level before you can even consider that the owner is renting in a way that leads one to believe they are a commercial enterprise.

Again, when DVC looks at reservations on an owners account to view reservations, I simply do not believe they can say...oh wait, this owner has booked a lot of BWV standard rooms but since they are all for themselves, its okay....but look at this other owner, they too only book BWV standard view rooms, but some are in the name of others, and since those can earn more money, we can say they are a commercial enterprise..and that it is reasonable for us to do that.....

And that is why I will come back to the point that I do not believe they can look at the type of room and use it as a determining factor in whether one is using the membership as a commerical enterprise....because I think that the commercial enterprise aspect is critical to the decision....and in the context of renting out a condominimum, meeting that threshold is much higher than say someone who might be selling purses on the internet.

Now, if the contracts said renters are not allowed under the personal use clause, I am more in line with your thinking because then DVC can consider every rental in their evaluation..

But, personal use clause includes owners, guests, and renters.....that tells me that owners are allowed to book rooms for anyone in those three groups and that DVC can only begin to scrutinze the number of rentals when that number grows to what can be seen as a business.

You example seems to indicate that DVC could decide that an owner is prohibited from booking too many hard to get rooms simply because the profit can be more....well, does that mean I can rent them as long as I can provide DVC proof that I didn't rent them over market value?

Remember, there is a clause in the contract that also says that the "terms and conditions" of a rental are up to the owner. If DVC is now trying to use the rate an owner may potentially get for a specific reservation to consider them as renting as a business, then I see this as a conflict against this clause.....to me, terms and conditions include the rate one asks.

All of these examples that DVC can use room type or treat owners at BWV differently using subjective measures such as rate or view IMO do not pass the "reasonable" discretion requirement that is part of the declaration.

Obviously I do know that you are not saying DVC plans to do this, but I honeslty believe that DVC knows they can not do what some believe they can and that is why they did make the language of RIV and beyond stricter....

IMO, owners of the pre RIV resorts should hold DVC to a very high standard when it comes to enforcing that clause because for the RIV and beyond resorts, that clause has become much easier for DVC to define a commerical enterprise,

Of course, everything that people mention happen in the course of using your membership....advertising, where you find renters, what you rent and how you rent....they all play a role....but that is not the standard that DVC has to abide by.. they have to first reach the conclusion that you might be running DVC as a business, and that can only happen if you have too many renters, because some renters don't count!

Summing up for my last time....IMO, the contract language supports, and the 2008 interpretation used by DVC supports, that if you are not renting enough of your ownership every year (use the rolling 12 month period) that can be reasonable considered a business, then none of those other things can even be looked at until you do..because doing so makes DVC actions, IMO, unreasonable....unless you renting at RIV and beyond and then I think they can...

If DVC says you have a pattern of renting 90% of your points every year, we feel you are a commerical enterprise. Here is everything else we know about you that supports that assumption.....you advertise on a website, you book only hard to get rooms, you never have your own names on the reservations.....then I think that counts as a reasonable application.

If DVC says that we see that you advertise on a website and you book only hard to get rooms each year. Even though you may only be using 10% of our membership, we are going to cosnider this a commercial enterprise....then I think this counts as an unreasonable application that one is a commercial enterprise.....if one owns at a pre-RIV resort.

Think about it...having such a wide range of subjective decisions, what prevents DVC from allowing their friends and family to run a commerical enterprise at SSR because its a low demand, if those owners have a different standard? That is why I can't wrap my head around this.....

I fully agree with @Sandisw on this.

I know that some keep saying that the 2008 20 reservation rule doesn’t apply any more, and that is being stated as fact by some, but I just don’t think we have the information to know that. It is a very real possibility that the 2008 rule is still the standard DVC works to.

Moreover, it has been highlighted before in this thread that those interpretive rules issued by DVC could be used as evidence for what DVC considers to be commercial renting, and as a means of preventing them creating any more onerous / restrictive rules in the pre-RIV contracts.

Anyway, one thing I think we all agree on is that it matters not what we think of the contract and how it should be interpreted… but what DVC thinks.. whether they are right or wrong!

 

[Tatebeck]

I see the addition of those qualifiers as material change to the rules because it changes the understanding of a buyer as to what DVC wants to use to determine a commercial enterprise.

For the pre RIV resorts, that does not exist and that is why they needed to put out the 2008 commercial use interpretation.

Owners wanted and DVC provided rules…and those rules revolved around a quantity..and why I do think that is critical to any enforcement.

The conclusion has always been that you are a commercial enterprise and that whatever DVC uses to determine that must be reasonable.

People keep saying the 20 reservation threshold no longer exists. We don’t know that because DVC. never came out and said it does not.

Thst document did say that if you had more than 20 and couldn’t prove it wasn’t a business, then you’d keep the 20 but no more.

They stated nothing 20 and under would be canceled, which means, an owner could hold 20 reservations at any one time and not suffer any consequence

So, I still contend that a reasonable interpretation in the context of DVC and the intent of thst clause was to stop people from running a business and that when one was accused of it, a reasonable person could conclude it was.

What you are saying is not true…no where in the contract does it say that how much you make matters when they give owners the right to set terms. You can’t give someone the right to do something and then penalize them for doing something you don’t like.

If one wants to ignore the actual meaning of what a commercial enterprise is…and I think there were a lot of examples posted yesterday from statues and I didn’t get that any of them said the amount of profit matters.

Let’s leave it there because I do not think a commercial enterprise in the context of DVC can be met…and that is required…without a volume of rentals that one can reasonably conclude shifts you from having an acceptable number of renters and an unacceptable levels.

What the members understand or think they understand doesn't really matter. The contracts say that they get to decide at DVC's discretion when they feel it approaches commercial enterprise. Full stop. If they want to say that booking and subsequently renting rooms that rent for more money is suspicious, then it now in fact is suspicious. That is a reasonable thought to have if someone is booking high value rooms and renting them out consistently.

They never stated that any reservations under 20 couldn't be cancelled, just that they were looking at each reservation after 20. Read the rule again. If those first 20 reservations appeared to be a pattern of rental activity that looked like a commercial enterprise, they could still be cancelled by DVC.

It's right at the end of the rule you keep bringing up...

from: https://dvcnews.com/index.php/dvc-p...commercial-renting-limitations-amended-to-pos

"This policy is not intended, and shall not be deemed, either (i) to constitute an exclusive act or statement by the Association regarding any breach of the commercial activity prohibitions set forth in the Declaration of Condominium and Membership Agreement, or (ii) to be an exhaustive list of all activities that shall be deemed to be commercial activity. Accordingly, the Association reserves the right to promulgate such additional rules or to take such additional actions or measures as it deems appropriate with respect to any breach of such prohibitions."

 

[Tatebeck]

I fully agree with @Sandisw on this.

I know that some keep saying that the 2008 20 reservation rule doesn’t apply any more, and that is being stated as fact by some, but I just don’t think we have the information to know that. It is a very real possibility that the 2008 rule is still the standard DVC works to.

Moreover, it has been highlighted before in this thread that those interpretive rules issued by DVC could be used as evidence for what DVC considers to be commercial renting, and as a means of preventing them creating any more onerous / restrictive rules in the pre-RIV contracts.

Anyway, one thing I think we all agree on is that it matters not what we think of the contract and how it should be interpreted… but what DVC thinks.. whether they are right or wrong!

I will agree that we don't actually know if DVC is still using the 20 reservation rule to start looking at bookings or not. I personally don't think they are applying it anymore since it is not in any current documents. But again as you say in the end it really doesn't matter. They could be looking at every reservation we make after 20 or they could not be. That doesn't mean that any of those reservations (in the first 20 or after the first 20) are free from scrutiny. If DVC feels that any of them break the purposely vague personal use rules, then they can do something about it.

Edit for comedic timing: I checked my email after submitting this and my topmost email was from the board sponsor saying "Rent Your DVC Points TODAY!"

 

[Sandisw]

What the members understand or think they understand doesn't really matter. The contracts say that they get to decide at DVC's discretion when they feel it approaches commercial enterprise. Full stop. If they want to say that booking and subsequently renting rooms that rent for more money is suspicious, then it now in fact is suspicious. That is a reasonable thought to have if someone is booking high value rooms and renting them out consistently.

They never stated that any reservations under 20 couldn't be cancelled, just that they were looking at each reservation after 20. Read the rule again. If those first 20 reservations appeared to be a pattern of rental activity that looked like a commercial enterprise, they could still be cancelled by DVC.

It's right at the end of the rule you keep bringing up...

from: https://dvcnews.com/index.php/dvc-p...commercial-renting-limitations-amended-to-pos

"This policy is not intended, and shall not be deemed, either (i) to constitute an exclusive act or statement by the Association regarding any breach of the commercial activity prohibitions set forth in the Declaration of Condominium and Membership Agreement, or (ii) to be an exhaustive list of all activities that shall be deemed to be commercial activity. Accordingly, the Association reserves the right to promulgate such additional rules or to take such additional actions or measures as it deems appropriate with respect to any breach of such prohibitions."

There was a post a few months ago that did have all the language as it existed in the HRR and it did include the line about canceling only those above 20..I will see if I can find it.

ETA: I know what it was…it was the word excess in the document…it said all reservations in excess of 20 would be considered for commercial purposes…

DVCs discretion that they concluded tour membership is a commercial enterprise..must be in the realm of reasonable…

And while you seem to think that number of rentals isn’t critical, I think the cases shared yesterday as examples certinaly read to me that it does.

But, only DVC knows and I guess we will know what they decide and then what actions owners want to take.

I am still waiting to get a response for my request to view the rules since my SSR and VGF POS state it exists and is on record.

 

[Tatebeck]

There was a post a few months ago that did have all the language as it existed in the HRR and it did include the line about canceling only those above 20..I will see if I can find it.

ETA: I know what it was…it was the word excess in the document…it said all reservations in excess of 20 would be considered for commercial purposes…

DVCs discretion that they concluded tour membership is a commercial enterprise..must be in the realm of reasonable…

And while you seem to think that number of rentals isn’t critical, I think the cases shared yesterday as examples certinaly read to me that it does.

But, only DVC knows and I guess we will know what they decide and then what actions owners want to take.

I am still waiting to get a response for my request to view the rules since my SSR and VGF POS state it exists and is on record.

Oh so this? "all reservations in excess of the first 20 reservations shall be presumed to be the use of Vacation Accommodations for commercial purposes in violation of the Declaration and the Membership Agreement"

Right, so at that point they would assume ANY AFTER the 20 would be commercial. WITHOUT saying that the original 20 would be considered personal (as at that point you would have failed to provide proof that they were indeed all personal).

So they have reserved the right, by not mentioning what would happen to the original 20 reservations, to apply the rest of the rules to them as they see fit, again as mentioned in the disclaimer after the old 20 reservation rule.

"This policy is not intended, and shall not be deemed, either (i) to constitute an exclusive act or statement by the Association regarding any breach of the commercial activity prohibitions set forth in the Declaration of Condominium and Membership Agreement, or (ii) to be an exhaustive list of all activities that shall be deemed to be commercial activity. Accordingly, the Association reserves the right to promulgate such additional rules or to take such additional actions or measures as it deems appropriate with respect to any breach of such prohibitions."


For the second point, the number of reservations is indeed critical, but the bar is much lower than you seem to think. Anything that forms a "pattern of rental activity" that they may decide looks like a "commercial enterprise."

The minimum for a pattern is a single repeat. So 1 rental could never be a pattern. But as soon as you make a second rental, if egregious enough, DVC could start to look at it. 2 stripes on a wall is a pattern. It has to be repeated at least once to become a pattern, and then the pattern just becomes more intricate from there.

I don't think they would ever start applying strict rules at 2 reservations, but by definition they could.

 

[Genie+]

IMO, to rise to the level of being a commercial enterprise there has to be a level of renting happening that one can reasonably conclude makes you one…whether it is number of reservations, number of points, or combination of both, I do believe that how many points are getting rented each year must be high in relation to what you own to reasonable conclude it’s a business…again, I’m addressing pre RIV resorts.

And the 2008 interpretation by DVC for owners lends support to that line of my thinking because they identified that if an owner was reaching 20 reservations a year, it was likely they were a business, unless one could prove you were not.

I do think DVC is prohibited from determining whether you have violated the terms because you are renting certain rooms if you don’t also reach that quantitative level that draws a reasonable conclusion you are a business, which I content has to be high in relation to what you own.

Everything DVC has done and said leads me to similar thinking - they want to err on the side of bigger operations. To some extent there is a symbiotic relationship with the smaller patterns of renting in that it is good for the membership and for DVC. And I think they’d prefer no impact there at all.

When it comes to determining where that line is crossed, I don’t think they need to stick to single metrics. If they decided to use a combo of metrics they wouldn’t need to worry about if any one of those metrics singularly would not be a usable in making such a determination. Only when a threshold is met with the combined total would they look into it.

Hypothetically it could be a point system that tracks a bunch of criteria, and when the point total crosses a line then they take a look. Erring on the side of bigger operations, that could be a high number before any ‘looking into it’ is triggered. For illustration purposes only - # of non-owner reservations, percentages, rooms/dates, tracked confirmed reservations, # & % of stripped/flipped contracts, etc. To me something like that seems the best tool to making sure the least amount of unintended triggers happen, and reasonable levels of activity would be unscathed.

 

[muppets3d]

And that is where we fundamentally disagree for the pre RIV resorts. I believe that the the declarations being exactly the same for all pre RiV resorts, requires them to use the same reasonable conclusions that you are a commercial enterprise.

Even if you want to say that each resort could be treated differently, the owners at that resort should expect that the same standards apply.... and I just don't see that calling one owner a commercial enterprise because they rent fewer rooms than someone else at the resort, but the rooms they choose are popular, is a reasonable....and the discretion they apply needs to be reasonable.

I contend that the words "pattern of rental activity" plus the interpretation in 2008 support that resorts don't matter and what does is the volume of rentals that is occuring has to reach a certain level before you can even consider that the owner is renting in a way that leads one to believe they are a commercial enterprise.

Again, when DVC looks at reservations on an owners account to view reservations, I simply do not believe they can say...oh wait, this owner has booked a lot of BWV standard rooms but since they are all for themselves, its okay....but look at this other owner, they too only book BWV standard view rooms, but some are in the name of others, and since those can earn more money, we can say they are a commercial enterprise..and that it is reasonable for us to do that.....

And that is why I will come back to the point that I do not believe they can look at the type of room and use it as a determining factor in whether one is using the membership as a commerical enterprise....because I think that the commercial enterprise aspect is critical to the decision....and in the context of renting out a condominimum, meeting that threshold is much higher than say someone who might be selling purses on the internet.

Now, if the contracts said renters are not allowed under the personal use clause, I am more in line with your thinking because then DVC can consider every rental in their evaluation..

But, personal use clause includes owners, guests, and renters.....that tells me that owners are allowed to book rooms for anyone in those three groups and that DVC can only begin to scrutinze the number of rentals when that number grows to what can be seen as a business.

You example seems to indicate that DVC could decide that an owner is prohibited from booking too many hard to get rooms simply because the profit can be more....well, does that mean I can rent them as long as I can provide DVC proof that I didn't rent them over market value?

Remember, there is a clause in the contract that also says that the "terms and conditions" of a rental are up to the owner. If DVC is now trying to use the rate an owner may potentially get for a specific reservation to consider them as renting as a business, then I see this as a conflict against this clause.....to me, terms and conditions include the rate one asks.

All of these examples that DVC can use room type or treat owners at BWV differently using subjective measures such as rate or view IMO do not pass the "reasonable" discretion requirement that is part of the declaration.

Obviously I do know that you are not saying DVC plans to do this, but I honeslty believe that DVC knows they can not do what some believe they can and that is why they did make the language of RIV and beyond stricter....

IMO, owners of the pre RIV resorts should hold DVC to a very high standard when it comes to enforcing that clause because for the RIV and beyond resorts, that clause has become much easier for DVC to define a commerical enterprise,

Of course, everything that people mention happen in the course of using your membership....advertising, where you find renters, what you rent and how you rent....they all play a role....but that is not the standard that DVC has to abide by.. they have to first reach the conclusion that you might be running DVC as a business, and that can only happen if you have too many renters, because some renters don't count!

Summing up for my last time....IMO, the contract language supports, and the 2008 interpretation used by DVC supports, that if you are not renting enough of your ownership every year (use the rolling 12 month period) that can be reasonable considered a business, then none of those other things can even be looked at until you do..because doing so makes DVC actions, IMO, unreasonable....unless you renting at RIV and beyond and then I think they can...

If DVC says you have a pattern of renting 90% of your points every year, we feel you are a commerical enterprise. Here is everything else we know about you that supports that assumption.....you advertise on a website, you book only hard to get rooms, you never have your own names on the reservations.....then I think that counts as a reasonable application.

If DVC says that we see that you advertise on a website and you book only hard to get rooms each year. Even though you may only be using 10% of our membership, we are going to cosnider this a commercial enterprise....then I think this counts as an unreasonable application that one is a commercial enterprise.....if one owns at a pre-RIV resort.

Think about it...having such a wide range of subjective decisions, what prevents DVC from allowing their friends and family to run a commerical enterprise at SSR because its a low demand, if those owners have a different standard? That is why I can't wrap my head around this.....

Doesn't the contract state that DVC can make changes as necessary, so why is there so much clinging to what it said in 2008?

 

[Sandisw]

Everything DVC has done and said leads me to similar thinking - they want to err on the side of bigger operations. To some extent there is a symbiotic relationship with the smaller patterns of renting in that it is good for the membership and for DVC. And I think they’d prefer no impact there at all.

When it comes to determining where that line is crossed, I don’t think they need to stick to single metrics. If they decided to use a combo of metrics they wouldn’t need to worry about if any one of those metrics singularly would not be a usable in making such a determination. Only when a threshold is met with the combined total would they look into it.

Hypothetically it could be a point system that tracks a bunch of criteria, and when the point total crosses a line then they take a look. Erring on the side of bigger operations, that could be a high number before anything ‘looking into it’ is triggered. For illustration purposes only - # of non-owner reservations, percentages, rooms/dates, tracked confirmed reservations, # & % of stripped/flipped contracts, etc. To me something like that seems the best tool to making sure the least amount of unintended triggers happen, and reasonable levels of activity would be unscathed.

And it’s why I should warn myself for debating that renting specific rooms would even be something DVC would even attempt to use.

They have a way to prevent those rooms from becoming rentals that has nothing to do with commercial enterprise.

It’s called the special seasons list.

 

[Genie+]

I would like to know why they aren’t enforcing ‘rentals cannot use banked/borrowed points’

 

[Tatebeck]

Everything DVC has done and said leads me to similar thinking - they want to err on the side of bigger operations. To some extent there is a symbiotic relationship with the smaller patterns of renting in that it is good for the membership and for DVC. And I think they’d prefer no impact there at all.

When it comes to determining where that line is crossed, I don’t think they need to stick to single metrics. If they decided to use a combo of metrics they wouldn’t need to worry about if any one of those metrics singularly would not be a usable in making such a determination. Only when a threshold is met with the combined total would they look into it.

Hypothetically it could be a point system that tracks a bunch of criteria, and when the point total crosses a line then they take a look. Erring on the side of bigger operations, that could be a high number before any ‘looking into it’ is triggered. For illustration purposes only - # of non-owner reservations, percentages, rooms/dates, tracked confirmed reservations, # & % of stripped/flipped contracts, etc. To me something like that seems the best tool to making sure the least amount of unintended triggers happen, and reasonable levels of activity would be unscathed.

I agree that they will likely start with and/or focus on the bigger operations. And they probably should. Easier targets with a bigger pattern after all.

But again what they CAN do and what they WILL do are very different. I am talking the strictest hypotheticals while Sandi it seems, is focusing on what is most "likely"

 

[Genie+]

And it’s why I should warn myself for debating that renting specific rooms would even be something DVC would even attempt to use.

They have a way to prevent those rooms from becoming rentals that has nothing to do with commercial enterprise.

It’s called the special seasons list.

They can go and do that. But they still have to contend with These commercial operations that are clearly and egregiously breaking the rules.

 

[Sandisw]

Doesn't the contract state that DVC can make changes as necessary, so why is there so much clinging to what it said in 2008?

They can make certain changes. They are not allowed to change anything that is a material right or a right to the contract unilaterally.

It’s listed in the contract in the declarations section which might me section 16?

And thst is what is at issue,,,what actions or definitions by DVC can be taken that are not a material change and what are.

I have been contending that restricting an owner’s right to rent a specific room is a material change to the rental limitations and they can’t do that without a vote from owners at the pre RIv resorts.

 

[muppets3d]

They can make certain changes. They are not allowed to change anything that is a material right or a right to the contract unilaterally.

It’s listed in the contract in the declarations section which might me section 16?

And thst is what is at issue,,,what actions or definitions by DVC can be taken that are not a material change and what are.

I have been contending that restricting an owner’s right to rent a specific room is a material change to the rental limitations and they can’t do that without a vote from owners at the pre RIv resorts.

You seem to think that they have pigeonholed themselves into a very strict definition of what commercial renting is based upon this 2008 document. I don't think anything could be further from the actual reality of the situation.

 

[Tatebeck]

They can make certain changes. They are not allowed to change anything that is a material right or a right to the contract unilaterally.

It’s listed in the contract in the declarations section which might me section 16?

And thst is what is at issue,,,what actions or definitions by DVC can be taken that are not a material change and what are.

I have been contending that restricting an owner’s right to rent a specific room is a material change to the rental limitations and they can’t do that without a vote from owners at the pre RIv resorts.

No one has said that you cannot rent a specific room. Just that if you do it multiple times and it falls into a pattern that DVC could reasonably think looks like a commercial enterprise, that they have the ability to do something about it. The most strict hypothetical under the current rules.