Getting Out of a Timeshare: Every Route, in the Order to Try Them

There is a way out, and the order matters

The legitimate ways out of a timeshare are to cancel during the rescission window, have the developer take it back, hire an exit firm or your own attorney, sell it, rent it to cover costs while you work on an exit, or, for heirs, refuse an inheritance. Some owners also stop paying; we cover that only for its consequences, because it damages credit and we do not recommend it. The two free routes come first. The first, cancelling inside the window, runs out within days. The second, a developer take-back, is offered on the developer’s terms. Try the routes in the order below, because each one costs more than the one before it if it fails.

The industry’s own figures explain why the free routes are narrow. ARDA, the developers’ trade group, paid Ernst & Young for its 2026 study of the U.S. timeshare business. It found that 61% of 2025 sales volume came from people who already owned a timeshare, that the average maintenance fee per weekly interval rose from $1,120 in 2021 to $1,550 in 2025, and that 47% of the resorts it covered were not in active sales, with roughly 84% of that group opening in 1985 or before.

Which way out should you try first?

Route	What it costs you	Who it fits	What usually blocks it
1. Rescission	Nothing; you get your money back	Recent buyers	The deadline, often 5 to 10 days
2. Developer take-back	Free to ask; sometimes a fee	Paid-off, current owners	An open loan, past-due fees, an unwanted product
3. Exit firm	A flat fee, quoted after a review	Owners the developer turned down	An open rescission window or a developer yes
4. Your own attorney	Hourly or contingency fees	Owners with documented misrepresentation	Regret without evidence
5. Resale	Commission, and fees while it sits	Desirable, paid-off weeks	A loan balance, or no buyers
6. Renting	Time and platform fees	Owners buying time	Rent below the annual fee
7. Stopping payment (not recommended)	Credit damage, collections	Who ends up here: owners out of options	Any route above still open
8. Disclaiming an inheritance	Filing and legal fees	Heirs who have not accepted it	Using or paying for it

1. Rescission

Cost: nothing. Every dollar comes back.

State law gives new buyers a short window to cancel outright. The deadlines we have verified run from 72 hours in Indiana to 15 days in a few situations. Nevada’s ends at midnight on the fifth calendar day after signing, Colorado allows five calendar days after the sale, and Florida allows ten calendar days from signing or from receiving the last required document, whichever is later.

Who it works for: a recent buyer who can send written notice, using the contract’s stated method, ahead of the deadline.

What disqualifies you: the calendar. Most windows open at signing or when the disclosure documents arrive, often in the middle of the vacation where the pitch happened, and nothing reopens one that has properly closed.

Signed recently? Check the state-by-state table, then follow the rescission guide.

2. Request a developer take-back

Cost: asking is free; a yes may carry a fee.

Disclosure: Candid Timeshare works with Vacation Ownership Consultants, a timeshare exit firm, and may be paid when readers hire it.

A number of developers will accept a surrender or deed-back from owners they approve. The FTC’s first step for an exit is to “start by contacting your timeshare company directly,” and the agency notes that some companies “have exit programs that let you exit for a modest fee.” Write to the developer yourself, or have a lawyer you already use do it, and look up recent resale prices for weeks like yours while you wait. Vacation Ownership Consultants opens its own process on that step too: “Contact your resort and check the resale market.” Hold off on signing with, or paying, any firm until the developer’s written answer is in hand.

Who it works for: owners whose purchase loan is paid off, whose fees are current, and whose product the developer still wants.

What disqualifies you: a loan balance, overdue fees, or a product the developer has stopped selling. Developers generally have no legal duty to take a timeshare back, which leaves price and terms to them. Our deed-back programs page lists what each large developer publishes.

Expect a pitch. VOC’s 2026 report says owners describe being pressed to “voluntarily” give up older deeded weeks and convert into newer points programs. With 61% of industry sales going to existing owners, an upgrade offer in reply to an exit request should not surprise anyone, and accepting one enlarges what you own. Keep your pen down during the exit call and at any owner update meeting, and treat an answer that is only an upgrade as a refusal. A quoted surrender price belongs in writing, where you can compare it: VOC reports that one owner who contacted it said her resort verbally quoted $7,500 to surrender a points-based ownership.

Three developers warn against outside help, so finish with them first. Wyndham’s Certified Exit page wants to be the owner’s “first and only call” and warns that using anyone besides its own specialists means “your options may be limited or nonexistent.” Holiday Inn Club Vacations takes Horizons off the table for any account where it detects an exit company, so apply there and get the written decision before you approach an exit firm, free consultation included. For Westgate, Rebecca Tushnet’s law blog reports that an exit company claimed, in a case decided in 2024, that Westgate would only take back ownerships if the owner swore an affidavit of no dealings with “any timeshare exit company, lawyer or law firm.” Westgate denied the language reaches every lawyer; the court described it as “sweeping.” Before you call any exit firm, ask Westgate’s Legacy Program whether a condition like that applies to you.

3. An exit firm that works with attorneys

Cost: one flat fee, put in writing once your file has been reviewed.

Turn to this route when the week has no resale value and the developer has said no, or named a price you won’t pay. Owners who still carry the purchase loan, owners at resorts where sales ended decades ago, and owners who slipped behind as the bills climbed are the usual fit.

Begin with a free consultation. At VOC, once you have contacted your resort, you upload your billing statements, purchase agreement and deed (if you have one) through its eligibility form; its team works out which options your ownership may fit; a free file review follows; and the choice to sign up, at a one-time flat fee, comes after that. VOC’s home page says it doesn’t “discuss billing until we’ve made sure you qualify” and that its consultations are “supported by seasoned industry partners and experienced timeshare attorneys.” A legitimate firm reads your contract and payment history before quoting and matches an exit method to it, bringing in an attorney where the method needs one. Ask, and get it in writing, whether that lawyer will be your lawyer: VOC’s terms of service say that unless you are otherwise represented by an attorney, including a participating attorney, “you represent yourself.” Our view: developers find it harder to brush off a lawyer’s letter than an owner stuck on hold, and that pressure is much of what the fee buys.

Telling a real firm from a scam. Regulators have left a paper trail. Per Washington’s attorney general, Reed Hein (trading as Timeshare Exit Team) collected upfront fees from over 2,800 people in that state, with individual exits costing anywhere from just under $3,000 up to tens of thousands of dollars. And in April 2026, the FTC announced a $140 million court order against Christopher Carroll, one of the main operators of an exit scheme that ran through a company called Consumer Law Protection. A firm worth hiring:

• reviews your documents first, then quotes one flat fee in writing;
• names the attorney who will represent you, so you can check that lawyer with the state bar;
• puts in writing what becomes of the fee if the developer says no;
• never tells you to stop paying fees or the loan, which the FTC lists as a scam sign;
• never guarantees an outcome or claims a link to your developer;
• says so, plainly, when you could still get out for free.

For the complete checklist see exit company red flags, and timeshare exit companies explains what the work involves.

Who it works for: owners turned away by the developer, owners still repaying the purchase loan, and anyone at one of the legacy resorts.

What disqualifies you: a cancellation window that is still open, or the developer agreeing in writing. In both cases, hiring someone is unnecessary.

4. A lawyer of your own, for a real claim

Cost: hourly billing or a contingency fee.

If you can document that the seller misrepresented the timeshare or left out a required disclosure, a lawyer licensed in your state can pursue that claim directly. These claims run on their own clocks. In Arizona, for example, a suit over fraud or material misrepresentation in a timeshare sale has to be filed within two years after the violation and no more than three years after the sale. Get the salesperson’s promises on paper now, before memory fades.

Who it works for: an owner who can point to a particular false statement or omitted disclosure, with proof.

What disqualifies you: buyer’s remorse with nothing more. A bad deal is not a lawsuit on its own. Hiring a timeshare attorney describes what a real claim looks like, and what was said at the sales presentation covers the statements that tend to qualify.

5. Resale

Cost: the broker’s commission, a price that could be nothing, and all the bills that arrive before it sells.

Expect offers far below what the pitch suggested. The FTC calls the timeshare market overcrowded, says it “might be hard, if not impossible” to sell, and calls anyone who guarantees a sale or big returns a scammer. Nearly half the resorts in ARDA’s own study are not in active sales.

Who it works for: a paid-off week, with fees current, at a resort travelers actually seek out.

What disqualifies you: an open loan, or a week with no demand. Avoid upfront listing fees. The FTC’s advice is to deal with resellers licensed where the timeshare sits, prefer one that takes its fee after the sale, and get refund terms in writing if asked to pay first. See selling a timeshare for the details.

6. Rent it out while you work on an exit

Cost: hours of your time plus the rental site’s commission, and usually a net loss.

Renting keeps the contract alive and pays toward one more year of it, so use it to buy time, not as the plan. VOC compared quoted rental payments with actual 2025 fees for three points-based ownerships: rent covered roughly 26% to 47% of the yearly fee, leaving each owner between about $650 and $1,280 behind.

Who it works for: an owner with an in-demand week who needs breathing room.

What disqualifies you: rent that falls short of the fee.

7. Stopping payment: the consequences

Cost: damaged credit at a minimum.

Washington’s attorney general reported that Reed Hein customers who quit paying ended up in collections or with hurt credit, and the state’s settlement made the company warn customers that certain exit methods can end in foreclosure. One of them, a man who traveled for months at a time for work, stopped paying on the company’s advice, never saw the resort’s collection case while abroad, and later said the family could not even consider buying a home with their lowered credit score.

Who ends up here: owners with nothing else open who decide the credit damage is a price they will pay.

What makes it a bad idea: an upcoming mortgage or auto loan, a co-owner who shares the credit hit, or any earlier route you have not tried.

Stop-paying instructions appear on the FTC’s list of exit scam warning signs, and according to Washington’s attorney general, Reed Hein sometimes gave exactly that instruction. A firm that tells you to stop paying is a firm to leave. Stopping maintenance fee payments and timeshare foreclosure set out the consequences.

8. Disclaiming an inheritance

Cost: a filing, and an estate attorney’s fee to do it properly.

An heir is not obliged to take a parent’s timeshare just because the resort starts billing. Refusing it is possible, and the state’s law sets whether and how a refusal works. Federal tax law (26 U.S.C. 2518) sets the test for tax purposes: the refusal must be in writing, delivered within nine months of the transfer that created your interest (or of your 21st birthday, if later), and the heir cannot have accepted the interest or any benefit from it.

Who it works for: heirs who would rather not own it.

What disqualifies you: acceptance. Staying in the week, or paying a bill out of your own pocket, can count. The inherited timeshare page has the full process.

What does keeping a timeshare cost over ten years?

Before you weigh an exit fee, put a number on doing nothing. Start with ARDA’s 2025 average maintenance fee of $1,550 per weekly interval and run ten annual bills under three assumptions:

If fees…	10th-year bill	Total over 10 years
stay at $1,550	$1,550	$15,500
rise 4.7% a year, the 2024 to 2025 increase in ARDA’s data	about $2,350	about $19,250
rise about 8.5% a year, the 2021 to 2025 pace in ARDA’s data	about $3,220	about $22,950

These are our calculations from ARDA’s averages, and they leave out special assessments, loan payments and club dues. Use your real statement in the exit cost calculator, and see cost of owning a timeshare and special assessments for what else can be billed.

Which documents should you gather first?

Whichever route you take, the same papers come up. Collect them before the first call:

• The purchase agreement, every page, plus any upgrade or conversion contracts
• The public offering statement or disclosure booklet, and the date you received it
• The deed, if your ownership is deeded
• The two most recent maintenance fee and club dues statements
• The latest loan statement, showing the balance, the rate and the lender
• Any letters or emails from the developer about exit, surrender or upgrades, and its written answer to your request
• Notes of what the salesperson said, with names and dates, while you still remember

How long does each route take?

Nobody can promise a date. Here is what published sources say:

• Rescission: the refund deadline is set by statute, for example 20 days after the developer receives your notice in Nevada, or 20 days after your demand (or five days after your check clears, if later) in Florida.
• A developer surrender: Wyndham estimates about 20 weeks for a voluntary surrender, subject to review. Holiday Inn Club Vacations, Westgate, Hilton Grand Vacations and Marriott give no timeline on their public exit pages.
• An exit firm: VOC published one 2026 case in which a retired owner with four contracts, who had wanted a deed-back but reported difficulty getting the resort to return his calls, enrolled in April and had confirmation he was no longer an owner by August, about four months. VOC says individual results vary, and no firm can promise a timeline.

Bills keep arriving while any route is underway, so keep paying until the exit is confirmed in writing.

The decision path

Stop at the first yes.

1. Signed in the past 15 days? Get the cancellation notice out today, by the contract’s method, with proof of delivery.
2. Inherited it and haven’t accepted it? See an estate attorney about disclaiming it soon; the federal tax test allows nine months, and state law sets whether a refusal works.
3. Everyone else: ask the resort in writing for its exit program, price and requirements, and check resale prices. Sign nothing at the call or an owner meeting. Wyndham, Holiday Inn Club and Westgate owners finish that process before calling any outside firm.
4. Week won’t sell, and the developer refused or wants too much? Ask an exit firm that works with attorneys for a free consultation and file review, or use your own lawyer for a documented claim, or a licensed broker who charges nothing upfront.
5. Proof the seller misled you? Take it to a lawyer, either one the exit firm retains or your own.

Watch the loan the whole way through. It is a separate debt, usually at a high rate, and lenders seldom refinance a timeshare since its resale value is near zero. If you qualify for a lower rate, a personal loan can replace the developer loan while the ownership is resolved; see paying off a timeshare loan.

Disclosure: Candid Timeshare works with Vacation Ownership Consultants, a timeshare exit firm, and may be paid when readers hire it. This page’s author, Kira Fairbank, is a manager at Vacation Ownership Consultants. We cite its published case data on this page where marked.

This page is general information, not legal advice. Each route turns on the wording of your contract and on state law, neither of which we can see. Have a lawyer licensed in your state read the contract before you mail a notice, sign a release, or skip a payment.