My grandparents have dug themselves a financial hole

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So my grandparents got a timeshare back in 2005, used it once, forgot about it, and it finally caught up with them.

They're both retired and they owe more than $3600.

It's horrible that my grandmother is senile and my grandfather takes care of her and yet they keep spending money they don't have.

My grandmother has reached out to my mother and my aunt for help and they want no part of this. We don't have that kind of money. The last time we ourselves owed that much money, we ended up behind on mortgage payments trying to pay it off until we were forced to move and enter bankruptcy for a temporary period.

It feels wrong to let my grandparents deal with this alone, but I can't think of what else to do.

Your grandparents can just ignore the notices. The only recourse the time share company has is to repossess the share. Arguably your grandparents might take a hit to their credit rating, but they might not.

My husband and his late first wife had a timeshare, which due to advancing age we no longer used. They kept wanting us to pay maintenance fees which kept going up. If we had wanted to vacation, it would have been cheaper to simply stay at a hotel.

When we approached the company about surrendering our property they indicated they "don't do that" but advised us we could advertise it for sale, on a site charging us money. My husband tried that but got zero results in a year. We also went to a seminar with one of these companies that for a fee will legally terminate the time share agreement. The fee was $5000. I said to my husband, look, these lawyers already have you prequalified as susceptible to bad choices. We are not going to do it!

So we stopped responding to the time share company's bills. They sent a certified letter, return receipt required. We let it sit in the P.O. uncollected. They sent another one! We did the same thing.

It's been years now and we haven't heard from them since. I think your grandparents should do the same thing.

In short: time shares are a scam.

edited to add: there was no effect on our credit rating.

/\She is absolutely right.
If they are low income you can always call legal aid in your area and get free advice.
I did.No longer am I a slave to JP Chase.

Have they approached their timeshare board about a deed-back? Can they Air-bnb their timeshare? In some cases is possible to recoup the fees that way. They can as a nuclear option simply stop paying and let their board re-posses it. Its not like they'll be able to actually do anything to your grandparents anyway.

Ignore the letters.

If the time share company thought it was worth it to sue for a judgment they would have done so already. As an earlier respondent wrote, there may be no personal recourse to your grandparents.

Your grandparents have been in default of their obligation for many many years. You can be sure the timeshare company has been renting out their week all those years (or offered it for rental) to one-off vacationers.

There is a company that advertises on TV (USA) that buys unwanted time shares. I don't know how they operate but it might be an option

Thank you all for the advice. I'll pass it onto my grandparents. No one should prey on the elderly.