Deeded, Points or Right-to-Use: Which Timeshare Do You Own?

What kind of timeshare do you own, and why does it matter?

Most U.S. timeshares fall into one of three legal types: a deeded interest, which is real estate; a beneficial interest in a trust that holds resort units, usually sold as points; or a right-to-use contract, which lets you stay at a resort until a set end date without owning real estate. Your deed, trust certificate or contract says which one you have. The type decides whether the obligation ever ends on its own, whether your heirs can inherit it, how it is transferred, and which exit routes are open to you.

Owners often describe their timeshare by how they book it (“we have a fixed week,” “we’re on points”). That tells you how you use it. The legal type is a separate question, and it is the one that matters when you want out.

How common is each type?

ARDA, the developers’ trade group, asked resorts which legal structures they sell in its industry-commissioned 2026 study. Resorts could pick more than one.

Legal structure	Share of 395 responding resorts
Deeded or fee-simple real estate	94%
Interest in a trust	62%
Right-to-use interest that expires at some future date	56%
Condominium (listed as “other”)	47%

ARDA’s survey defines the deeded type as “generally referred to as a timeshare estate,” considered a real property interest under state law, and the right-to-use type as “generally referred to as a timeshare license,” which “is not considered a real property interest at the state level.” It describes a trust interest as a beneficial interest in a trust that holds property for the owners, which can be shown by “a certificate, deed (in the case of a Florida Land Trust) or other similar document.”

What does the law call each type?

State timeshare acts set out the categories, and the labels in your contract usually track them. Florida’s Vacation Plan and Timesharing Act, chapter 721 of its statutes, defines three:

• Timeshare estate: a right to occupy a unit coupled with an ownership interest, which can include “a direct or indirect beneficial interest in a trust” that meets the act’s requirements. The statute is blunt: “A timeshare estate is a parcel of real property under the laws of this state.”
• Timeshare license: “a right to occupy a timeshare unit, which right is not a personal property timeshare interest or a timeshare estate.” This is the right-to-use category.
• Personal property timeshare interest: a right to occupy accommodations “comprised of personal property that is not permanently affixed to real property,” which covers things like vessels.

Florida’s definition of a timeshare plan is deliberately wide. It reaches arrangements “by membership, agreement, tenancy in common, sale, lease, deed, rental agreement, license, or right-to-use agreement or by any other means,” so calling a product a membership does not by itself take it outside the law. South Carolina draws a similar line between a “vacation time sharing ownership plan,” where the buyer gets “an ownership interest in real property,” and a “vacation time sharing lease plan,” where the buyer gets a right to use but “does not receive an ownership interest in real” property.

How do the types compare when you want out?

Question	Deeded week	Points in a trust	Right-to-use contract
What you hold	A recorded interest in a specific resort	A beneficial interest in a trust that owns units at several resorts	A contract right to stay, with no real estate
Is it real estate?	Yes	Often yes (see the Lennen case below)	No, under Florida’s and South Carolina’s categories
When does it end?	When the timeshare plan’s term ends, which can be decades away or not fixed; owners can sometimes vote to end it early	Under the trust agreement; check it for a term or termination date	On the end date in the contract
Can heirs inherit it?	The FTC says deeded timeshares are real property “that your heirs may inherit”	Check the trust agreement and your deed	Check the contract for what happens at death
How a transfer is done	A new deed, recorded in the county	A deed or assignment of the trust interest, under the trust’s rules	Under the contract’s assignment terms
Where to start	Our deed-back guide and resale guide	The developer’s points or club exit program	The contract’s term and cancellation terms

Our guide to how long a timeshare lasts goes deeper on terms, extensions and votes to end a plan.

Fixed week, floating week, biennial or points: what is the difference?

These are booking systems, and any of them can sit on top of a deeded interest.

• Fixed week: the same unit, or unit type, in the same week every year.
• Floating week: a week you reserve within a season or a range of dates, subject to availability.
• Biennial: use every other year, in odd or even years.
• Points: an annual allotment you spend on stays across a network. The FTC notes that the points needed “will vary depending on the property, location, length of stay, and time of year,” and that at some timeshares unused points expire each year.

ARDA’s study found that 88% of responding resorts have some form of points product, 85% have traditional weeks and 79% offer biennials. It also explains how one becomes the other: weeks may be “converted into points-based vacation products,” either by dedicating them to a points trust or by “overlaying” a points option on top of weekly ownership. That is why many owners who bought a deeded week years ago now receive points statements; the deed may still be there underneath.

Points carry a risk that weeks do not. Florida requires a points plan’s public offering statement to explain “the circumstances by which the point values may change, the extent of such changes, and the person or entity responsible for the changes.” In other words, what your points buy can move, and the developer usually decides.

Are timeshare points real estate? The Lennen case

Anthony and Beth Lennen bought beneficial interests in Marriott’s MVC Trust in 2015 and later sued, arguing that the points they bought were not real property and so could not have been validly deeded to them. According to the federal appeals court that heard the case, Marriott created the trust in 2010, after the foreclosure crisis left it with a glut of unsold and repossessed weeks. The trust was “a points-based product in a multisite timeshare plan” covering forty-four Marriott-owned timeshare condominiums in eleven states, and Marriott deeded beneficial interests to buyers in blocks of 250 points.

In an unpublished opinion on December 9, 2021, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the lower court’s rulings against the Lennens. It held that their trust interests “were real property interests under both the Florida Land Trust Act and the Florida Timeshare Act,” because the trust was a land trust that did not declare the interests to be personal property, and the interests met Florida’s definition of a timeshare estate.

The practical lesson: owning “points” does not mean you own nothing. If your points are a deeded trust interest, you hold real estate with the annual assessments, transfer formalities and inheritance questions that come with it.

How does a right-to-use contract work?

A right-to-use contract gives you the use of accommodations for a fixed number of years without a deed. The developer or another entity keeps title. ARDA’s questionnaire asked resorts selling right-to-use products how long the contract runs, offering answers from one year or less up to “100+ years,” so the end date can be near or far beyond your lifetime. Read the term in your own contract.

Inside the U.S., Florida treats right-to-use as a timeshare license and regulates it under the same act as deeded weeks. Right-to-use contracts are also sold abroad; if yours is for a resort in Mexico, see our Mexican timeshare guide.

What about vacation clubs, travel clubs and fractionals?

Vacation clubs. The FTC warns that the label covers different products. “Some vacation clubs are a variation of a timeshare: you pay an initial fee, and once you’re enrolled, you select resorts to stay at. The difference is you pay each time for the cost of staying there.” Others only promise discounts on travel. Florida’s multisite rules leave out arrangements where the buyer’s maximum total cost over the whole term is $3,000 or less, or where the term is three years or less, so a cheap or short club may fall outside them while a long, expensive one falls inside.

Fractionals. ARDA defines a fractional as an ownership interest “representing a period not fewer than two weeks but usually three weeks or more,” typically with more services than a standard timeshare. Its $10.7 billion figure for 2025 timeshare sales excludes fractional and private residence club sales.

Where in your paperwork can you find your type?

Pull these documents and look for the words in quotation marks:

1. The deed, if there is one. Look for “timeshare estate,” “interval,” a unit and week number, or a reference to a trust and a number of points, plus a county recording stamp. If you can’t find it, the county recorder or clerk where the resort is located can search the land records.
2. The purchase contract. Look for “license,” “right to use,” “membership” or “term of years,” and an end date. Arizona, for example, now requires a separate disclosure of “the duration of the timeshare agreement entered into by the purchaser or whether the agreement has no set duration.”
3. The public offering statement or trust summary. This describes the plan, its duration and, for points, how point values can change.
4. The latest maintenance fee bill. It names the association or management company you will need to write to, which may not be the company that sold you the timeshare.

If the papers are unclear, ask the resort in writing what legal interest you hold and when it ends, and keep the answer.

How should you try to get out, whatever the type?

The order is the same for every type.

1. Still inside the cancellation window? Cancel in writing now. See the rescission period guide and the deadline tool.
2. Inherited it and haven’t accepted it? Ask an estate attorney about disclaiming before you use it or pay anything; see inherited timeshares.
3. Write to the resort and check resale prices. Go to the timeshare company first, as the FTC advises, because some companies run their own exit programs. Ask for the surrender, deed-back or exit program by name, and get its price and conditions back in writing. Tell the resort exactly what you hold (deeded week, trust points or right-to-use) and ask whether the program covers it. Two developers set conditions on timing. Wyndham describes its Certified Exit team as owners’ “first and only call” and warns that going elsewhere can leave options “limited or nonexistent.” Westgate, according to an exit company’s 2024 court allegations reported on Rebecca Tushnet’s law blog, has required owners to swear they had not worked with “any timeshare exit company, lawyer or law firm”; Westgate contests that reading, and the judge called the wording “sweeping.” Let either developer’s process run its course before you speak to an outside firm.
4. Sign nothing at an upgrade pitch. An offer to convert your deeded week into points is a new contract with its own terms and costs; see the upgrade trap guide.
5. No resale value, and the resort refused or named a price you can’t accept? Get a free consultation and file review from a timeshare exit firm.

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

Vacation Ownership Consultants (VOC), a Scottsdale, Arizona exit firm, lists “Contact your resort and check the resale market” as step one of its own process. Owners who get nowhere then upload their bills, contract and deed (if they have one) through VOC’s eligibility form, VOC checks which options fit that ownership, and a free file review follows; enrolling for its one-time flat fee comes last and is optional. VOC’s home page says billing isn’t discussed “until we’ve made sure you qualify.” Use the same yardstick on any firm: it reads your papers before it quotes, names the attorney handling the file, puts a single fee and its refund terms in writing, never tells you to stop paying, and never promises the result. The red flags page has the full checklist.

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 is general information, not legal advice. Whether your timeshare is real estate, how long it lasts and how it can be transferred depend on the state where the resort is located and on your exact documents. A real estate attorney licensed in that state can confirm what you hold.