Adding someone to your DVC deed?

[merlib]

Our daughter is now 22 years old and we would like to add her name to the DVC deed so that she can call and make reservations, or buy annual passes etc. How hard/easy is that? Do we have to involve a lawyer? We live in CT not FL if that matters.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me!

 

[skelooch]

Call member administration, they can handle the whole thing for you. It was very simple they'll send you the paperwork, you fill it out and return it, they do the rest. Takes a couple of months before she will get her own membership card.
When I did it about 6 months ago it cost $675 for my 3 contracts, it might be less for a single contract.
It can be done without going through DVC for a lot cheaper, but it was to much of a hassle for me to bother with. It still has to go through ROFR, but that is just a formality when adding a family member.
Perhaps someone will chime in with the steps for doing it yourself, if you want to save some money.

 

[lilpooh108]

Call member administration, they can handle the whole thing for you. It was very simple they'll send you the paperwork, you fill it out and return it, they do the rest. Takes a couple of months before she will get her own membership card.
When I did it about 6 months ago it cost $675 for my 3 contracts, it might be less for a single contract.
It can be done without going through DVC for a lot cheaper, but it was to much of a hassle for me to bother with. It still has to go through ROFR, but that is just a formality when adding a family member.
Perhaps someone will chime in with the steps for doing it yourself, if you want to save some money.

Do you know if going through ROFR will subject the contract to the new resale rules?

MS seems to mess stuff up alot and one of my concerns is that they will "recategorize" my contract somehow.

Did you ever discuss this issue with DVC? Thanks.

 

[cmwade77]

If all you are worried about is her being able to make her own reservations, etc., you do not necessarily need to add her to the deed, you can add her as an associate.

This method doesn't cost, but she may not be able to get her own membership card, you should check with your rep about that.

 

[Missyrose]

If all you are worried about is her being able to make her own reservations, etc., you do not necessarily need to add her to the deed, you can add her as an associate.

This method doesn't cost, but she may not be able to get her own membership card, you should check with your rep about that.

Associates can make reservations but they will not be eligible for perks and and discounts, such as the AP discount.

 

[DizBub]

Associates can make reservations but they will not be eligible for perks and and discounts, such as the AP discount.

What if she still lives at home (at the same address)?

 

[Missyrose]

What if she still lives at home (at the same address)?

If she lived at home, then yes, she would be eligible for the discount. But I assumed that at 22 she was probably out of the house, especially since the parents want to add her to the deed.

 

[rcchello]

The advantage to adding someone as an associate is they can make reservations, but if they have financial or marital difficulties it will not effect your ownership.


The one thing I personally would hate is for my ownership to be part of a child's divorce settlement. i would hate having to coordinate reservations with an child's angry ex-spouse.

 

[Lynne M]

OP, it's your choice, of course, but be aware that adding her to the deed puts the contract in play if she should ever declare bankruptcy or divorce. It becomes one of her assets, and you could find your contract being sold as part of a divorce or bankruptcy court's ruling.

 

[Disneypapa]

I became a widower about 15 months ago and decided to add my son to my one contract deed. I did it myself and saved the $375 fee DVC wanted to do it for me. No problems encountered.

 

[skirby]

Here's a thread from a few months ago that spelled out the process of doing it yourself: Adding a Name on Existing Contract

 

[Dean]

Call member administration, they can handle the whole thing for you. It was very simple they'll send you the paperwork, you fill it out and return it, they do the rest. Takes a couple of months before she will get her own membership card.
When I did it about 6 months ago it cost $675 for my 3 contracts, it might be less for a single contract.
It can be done without going through DVC for a lot cheaper, but it was to much of a hassle for me to bother with. It still has to go through ROFR, but that is just a formality when adding a family member.
Perhaps someone will chime in with the steps for doing it yourself, if you want to save some money.

One can do it themselves for about $50 for a single contract, $100 or less for 3. I think it cost me about $60 for 4 when we did it.

The steps are to get the deed transfer info from Disney.
Complete the transfer form and send it in (with contract if it's a sale).
They'll send you ROFR and you then record that with a deed (quit claim OK in this situation). OC has another tax form now as well. Remember 2 witnesses AND a notary. The notary can also sign separately as a witness but the act of notarizing does not count as a witness.
Complete a second transfer form that came with ROFR and send that and a copy of the recorded deed to DVC to update the contract.

As noted, it does make the new person added an owner and the contract subject to applicable financial risks. For this situation it's best to add them as an associate and show them as at the same address if possible. We did this for 4 deeds (4*25) but did not do so for our larger BWV deed.

 

[UFlawgator]

The points about being careful who you add is a good one, since the property could be considered assests in case of divorce, bankruptcy, or civil suits. However, at my 83 year old Mom's request I am currently working on adding myself and 2 sisters to my Mom's 6 existing contracts. Here are a few tips for others who are going to do this:
l. When you draft the deed(s), be sure and put what kind of tenancy it is, i.e., if you want a joint tenancy with the right of survivorship, you MUST specify this in the deed, or it will automatically default to tenants in common under Florida law. That would mean that that it would not automatically pass to the next survivor on the deed. If you are just adding a husband or wife to the deed, you can just put "husband and wife" and in Florida that will create a tenancy by the entireties which also will allow the property to pass automatically to the survivor.
2. If you have a lot of points on contract(s) that you are adding someone on, keep in mind the Federal Gift Tax implications. If you add someone to a deed (gratutious), then that is a gift to that person. In 2013 the Federal Gift Tax exclusion is $14,000. per person. I called DVD to ask them how they determined the current existing value of the contracts and they referred me to Fidelity Realty in Orlando who does resales of DVD contracts. The broker there was able to give me an approximate value per point of the contracts. You can also probably see this by going to a resale website to see how this would impact your own situation for gifting.
3. My Mom and sisters and I originally thought about adding my Mom's name to some contracts with different sisters on different contracts along with my Mom's name. However, when I called DVC member services, they pointed out that would make it more difficult for us to "share" points because a different membership number account would be created for every contract that was titled differently. We decided that for now we would just put everyone on all the contracts.
4. I tried to submit a link to the Orange County Comptroller's website, but as a new user here, I don't have enough posts to submit a link. You can google it and then do a search to find your existing deeds by your name to make sure you have the correct and exact legal description on the deed you want to draw up. Also, be sure and check their requirements as to what you must have on a deed, and specifics such as a 3" block at the top right hand page of the first page of the deed, etc.
Good luck!

One can do it themselves for about $50 for a single contract, $100 or less for 3. I think it cost me about $60 for 4 when we did it.

The steps are to get the deed transfer info from Disney.
Complete the transfer form and send it in (with contract if it's a sale).
They'll send you ROFR and you then record that with a deed (quit claim OK in this situation). OC has another tax form now as well. Remember 2 witnesses AND a notary. The notary can also sign separately as a witness but the act of notarizing does not count as a witness.
Complete a second transfer form that came with ROFR and send that and a copy of the recorded deed to DVC to update the contract.

As noted, it does make the new person added an owner and the contract subject to applicable financial risks. For this situation it's best to add them as an associate and show them as at the same address if possible. We did this for 4 deeds (4*25) but did not do so for our larger BWV deed.

 

[lodge]

I became a widower about 15 months ago and decided to add my son to my one contract deed. I did it myself and saved the $375 fee DVC wanted to do it for me. No problems encountered.

Sorry for your loss.

 

[Dean]

The points about being careful who you add is a good one, since the property could be considered assests in case of divorce, bankruptcy, or civil suits. However, at my 83 year old Mom's request I am currently working on adding myself and 2 sisters to my Mom's 6 existing contracts. Here are a few tips for others who are going to do this:
l. When you draft the deed(s), be sure and put what kind of tenancy it is, i.e., if you want a joint tenancy with the right of survivorship, you MUST specify this in the deed, or it will automatically default to tenants in common under Florida law. That would mean that that it would not automatically pass to the next survivor on the deed. If you are just adding a husband or wife to the deed, you can just put "husband and wife" and in Florida that will create a tenancy by the entireties which also will allow the property to pass automatically to the survivor.
2. If you have a lot of points on contract(s) that you are adding someone on, keep in mind the Federal Gift Tax implications. If you add someone to a deed (gratutious), then that is a gift to that person. In 2013 the Federal Gift Tax exclusion is $14,000. per person. I called DVD to ask them how they determined the current existing value of the contracts and they referred me to Fidelity Realty in Orlando who does resales of DVD contracts. The broker there was able to give me an approximate value per point of the contracts. You can also probably see this by going to a resale website to see how this would impact your own situation for gifting.
3. My Mom and sisters and I originally thought about adding my Mom's name to some contracts with different sisters on different contracts along with my Mom's name. However, when I called DVC member services, they pointed out that would make it more difficult for us to "share" points because a different membership number account would be created for every contract that was titled differently. We decided that for now we would just put everyone on all the contracts.
4. I tried to submit a link to the Orange County Comptroller's website, but as a new user here, I don't have enough posts to submit a link. You can google it and then do a search to find your existing deeds by your name to make sure you have the correct and exact legal description on the deed you want to draw up. Also, be sure and check their requirements as to what you must have on a deed, and specifics such as a 3" block at the top right hand page of the first page of the deed, etc.
Good luck!

Good advice consistent with more detailed info that's been presented on DIS over the years. One point of clarification is that the only portion that's at risk $$ wise is the percent that a given person owns, in this case 1/3 each of the totals. DVC gave you correct and good advice that all of the contracts would become totally separate and unrelated is you had different names. with the previous banking rules, it would also have had other implications had they not changed it or if they change it back to a % of the total points. One caveat is that the deed requires 2 witnesses. One can be the notary but they have to sign separately as a witness.

 

[GoofyDad1970]

The points about being careful who you add is a good one, since the property could be considered assests in case of divorce, bankruptcy, or civil suits. However, at my 83 year old Mom's request I am currently working on adding myself and 2 sisters to my Mom's 6 existing contracts. Here are a few tips for others who are going to do this:
l. When you draft the deed(s), be sure and put what kind of tenancy it is, i.e., if you want a joint tenancy with the right of survivorship, you MUST specify this in the deed, or it will automatically default to tenants in common under Florida law. That would mean that that it would not automatically pass to the next survivor on the deed. If you are just adding a husband or wife to the deed, you can just put "husband and wife" and in Florida that will create a tenancy by the entireties which also will allow the property to pass automatically to the survivor.
2. If you have a lot of points on contract(s) that you are adding someone on, keep in mind the Federal Gift Tax implications. If you add someone to a deed (gratutious), then that is a gift to that person. In 2013 the Federal Gift Tax exclusion is $14,000. per person. I called DVD to ask them how they determined the current existing value of the contracts and they referred me to Fidelity Realty in Orlando who does resales of DVD contracts. The broker there was able to give me an approximate value per point of the contracts. You can also probably see this by going to a resale website to see how this would impact your own situation for gifting.
3. My Mom and sisters and I originally thought about adding my Mom's name to some contracts with different sisters on different contracts along with my Mom's name. However, when I called DVC member services, they pointed out that would make it more difficult for us to "share" points because a different membership number account would be created for every contract that was titled differently. We decided that for now we would just put everyone on all the contracts.
4. I tried to submit a link to the Orange County Comptroller's website, but as a new user here, I don't have enough posts to submit a link. You can google it and then do a search to find your existing deeds by your name to make sure you have the correct and exact legal description on the deed you want to draw up. Also, be sure and check their requirements as to what you must have on a deed, and specifics such as a 3" block at the top right hand page of the first page of the deed, etc.
Good luck!

I agree with UFLawGator, but I would add that the laws are different in every state. In Illinois, a gift to one spouse is not considered "marital property" or part of the "marital estate" and thus it is not subject to a claim by the other spouse in a divorce case. So hypothetically, if you want to give your contract to your son, his wife would likely have no claim to it. The key is that you need to make it crystal clear who you are (and are not) giving it to. The tenancy issue is more relevant to a situation where one party dies, and less relevant (though not necessarily irrelevant) to a divorce situation. If you add your hypothetical daughter-in-law's name to the deed in practically any capacity, the contract probably becomes a marital asset. If you have a concern, you should check with a lawyer.

 

[danimaroo]

I understand I'm bumping an old thread here, but there was something I only could find in this thread that I wanted to ask about, so I thought it might be better to bump this one instead of start a brand new one...

#1. My in-laws are adding my husband and myself to their DVC contract. So it will go from the two of them to the four of us as the owners.

Because it's just adding our names to the contract, and they are still going to be on it, we won't have to worry about our current reservations being canceled/messed with, right? Since the DVC contract number shouldn't change...

#2. This is referring to the Federal Gift Tax. I tried to find out more about it, but I couldn't really figure out an answer. If the DVC contract is worth a Fair Market Value of AROUND $28,000 (if the contract's FMV is anything less than $70 per point, it'd be under $28,000 and we don't have to worry about this), but anyway... Do we have to worry about this "gratuitous transfer" being under the Federal Gift Tax?

Hopefully I'm explaining the second question right. According to the IRS site, if two spouses (his parents) want to gift property (though they'll still be on the contract, so that's kind of confusing), they are allowed to gift $28,000 to EACH PERSON.

So would that mean because both my husband and I will be added to the contract, they can donate $28,000 to each of us, for a total of $56,000, so we don't have to worry about the gift tax?

I guess what it comes down to is what the FMV is of the contract. I have seen OKW contracts sell for anywhere from the high $50s to $70 per point, so I'm not sure exactly where the contract falls. I figured $65 was a pretty fair market value for an OKW contract right now, which would bring the value in at under $28,000.

Hopefully I'm being clear on those questions!

The good news is, thanks to a wonderful post on this board, I was able to write the transfer deed myself, and we just signed the paperwork with a notary and 2 witnesses today! Our next step is to send in everything to the OCC office, then wait for it to be recorded. Very exciting stuff!

 

[Dean]

I understand I'm bumping an old thread here, but there was something I only could find in this thread that I wanted to ask about, so I thought it might be better to bump this one instead of start a brand new one...

#1. My in-laws are adding my husband and myself to their DVC contract. So it will go from the two of them to the four of us as the owners.

Because it's just adding our names to the contract, and they are still going to be on it, we won't have to worry about our current reservations being canceled/messed with, right? Since the DVC contract number shouldn't change...

Correct but remind them on all the paperwork just to be sure. I've discussed this with them specifically and mine were not cancelled.

#2. This is referring to the Federal Gift Tax. I tried to find out more about it, but I couldn't really figure out an answer. If the DVC contract is worth a Fair Market Value of AROUND $28,000 (if the contract's FMV is anything less than $70 per point, it'd be under $28,000 and we don't have to worry about this), but anyway... Do we have to worry about this "gratuitous transfer" being under the Federal Gift Tax?

Hopefully I'm explaining the second question right. According to the IRS site, if two spouses (his parents) want to gift property (though they'll still be on the contract, so that's kind of confusing), they are allowed to gift $28,000 to EACH PERSON.

I'm not a tax lawyer but as I understand it it's per person/per person. So with 2 givers and 2 receivers it's only $3500 for each person. Half of the original value ($28K this example) divided by 2 for both parents and by 2 for both receives. This assumes the deed is worded such that all own jointly.

I guess what it comes down to is what the FMV is of the contract. I have seen OKW contracts sell for anywhere from the high $50s to $70 per point, so I'm not sure exactly where the contract falls. I figured $65 was a pretty fair market value for an OKW contract right now, which would bring the value in at under $28,000.

Hopefully I'm being clear on those questions!

The good news is, thanks to a wonderful post on this board, I was able to write the transfer deed myself, and we just signed the paperwork with a notary and 2 witnesses today! Our next step is to send in everything to the OCC office, then wait for it to be recorded. Very exciting stuff!

I'd use a very low end amount, basically the bottom of the resale range as FMV. Basically I wouldn't worry about it, it's a timeshare.

 

[Dean]

I wanted to add that it's sometimes possible to count gifts toward the lifetime estate credit in some situations.

 

[danimaroo]

Thanks, Dean! We called MS today just to verify that nothing would change with the current reservations and she confirmed that they'd all be safe. For extra measure, when I send the final paperwork into DVC, I'm going to add a note to ensure they don't cancel any existing reservations, haha.

I'm not too worried about the gift thing now, either. The contract, point-wise, is JUST on the edge of possibly hitting the $28k amount, but that's assuming the FMV is $70 per point for OKW, and I know I've seen it sell for lower.

Sent in everything to OCC today, so here's hoping we get everything taken care of before our September trip!