Timeshares and Florida Medicaid: The Asset Nobody Can Sell

Phyllis's Problem: Two Deeds, Two Bills, and a $2,000 Asset Limit

Phyllis is 82 and lives in Kissimmee. She owns two deeded timeshare weeks she and her late husband bought decades ago, and every year the maintenance-fee invoices arrive whether she uses the weeks or not. Phyllis is a composite I'm using to illustrate a problem I see often in my practice, not an actual client, but her situation is common among Central Florida families where resort ownership was once sold as a lifetime vacation plan.

Now Phyllis needs nursing home care, and her son is helping her apply for long-term care Medicaid. He already knows, from other reading, that a single Medicaid applicant must bring countable assets down to a very low limit. What he did not expect is that two timeshares nobody wants to buy could stand between his mother and approval. A timeshare is real property or a contractual ownership interest, and unlike Phyllis's homestead, it gets no automatic exemption. The question his family faced, and the one I want to answer here, is simple: do the timeshares count, and if so, how does a family actually get rid of them.

Deeded vs. Right-to-Use: Why the Type of Timeshare Matters

Not all timeshares are structured the same way, and the structure affects how Florida treats the interest.

• Deeded timeshares convey an actual ownership interest in real property, usually a fractional or undivided interest tied to a specific week or points allotment. This is what Phyllis has. A deeded interest passes through the owner's estate at death like any other real property interest, and it is this real, recorded ownership that Medicaid treats as a countable resource.
• Right-to-use timeshares are a contractual license to use a unit for a set period of years, not an ownership deed. These can still have value and still generate maintenance fees, but they are analyzed differently because there is no deed to clear and the interest typically expires on its own schedule.

Phyllis's son pulled both deeds early in the process, which matters because the eligibility worker will want to see exactly what kind of interest she holds before deciding how to value and document it.

How DCF Actually Values a Timeshare, and the Good Faith Effort to Sell

When the Department of Children and Families reviews assets through its ACCESS system, it looks at equity value: what the asset could reasonably be expected to sell for in the local market, less any debt against it. On paper, that sounds straightforward. In practice, timeshares almost never sell for anything close to what families paid, and many have no functioning resale market at all.

Florida's Medicaid policy manual recognizes this reality and gives families a real path forward. Property, including a timeshare, can be temporarily excluded from the countable asset total while the applicant makes a good faith effort to sell it at fair market value. To get that exclusion, the eligibility specialist needs to verify two things: that the property is genuinely listed for sale, and that no reasonable offer has been turned down. Acceptable proof includes a listing with a licensed broker, a classified or marketplace listing, or a written statement from the resort or a timeshare resale company confirming the interest has no viable market or cannot be resold.

One important caution: the asking price has to be realistic. If a worker sees a listing priced far above anything the unit could actually bring, that undercuts the good faith argument. Phyllis's son kept the listing price modest and kept copies of every communication, because he understood the file needed to tell a believable story.

Deed-Back Programs: Often the Cleanest Exit

Before chasing a resale buyer who may never materialize, it is worth asking the resort directly whether it will simply take the interest back. Many larger developers operate what is often called a deed-back, surrender, or take-back program, allowing a qualifying owner to return the interest to the developer rather than sell it on the open market.

These programs are not guaranteed and not a legal right. Developers typically require the account to be current, meaning no unpaid maintenance fees and no outstanding mortgage balance on the timeshare itself, before they will accept a deed back. Acceptance is at the developer's discretion.

Where available, this is usually the cleanest resolution for a Medicaid applicant's family, because it removes the ownership interest entirely rather than leaving it in limbo on a resale listing that may sit for years. Phyllis's son called the owner services departments for both resorts, asked specifically about a deed-back or surrender option, and got the terms in writing before signing anything.

Avoiding Timeshare Exit Scams

Families searching for a way out of a timeshare will find no shortage of companies advertising guaranteed exits for an upfront fee, often in the thousands of dollars. Many of these offers are not legitimate, and I urge every family I work with to be cautious.

The safer first call is always to the resort's own owner services or homeowner relations department, not to a third-party exit company that found the family through a mailer or a web search.

Maintenance Fees During Spend-Down, and What Happens at Death

While a timeshare sits on the market or while a deed-back request is pending, the maintenance fees keep coming. These ongoing fees are generally treated as a legitimate expense of maintaining the asset during a spend-down period, similar to how homeowners' association dues or property taxes are handled for a house that is being sold. Keeping receipts and statements for every fee paid matters, both to show the account is current (often required for a deed-back) and to document where the applicant's funds went during the months leading up to the Medicaid application.

If a deeded timeshare is never resolved before the owner dies, it does not disappear. A deeded interest in real property passes through the estate like any other asset and can become part of a probate administration, and it can also draw the attention of Florida's Medicaid estate recovery process if the Medicaid recipient received long-term care benefits. That is one more reason families are generally better served clearing the timeshare, through sale, good faith exclusion and continued effort, or a developer deed-back, while the owner is alive and able to sign the necessary paperwork.

The Order of Steps Phyllis's Son Followed

Here is the sequence that worked for Phyllis's family, in the order they tackled it:

• Pulled both timeshare deeds to confirm they were deeded interests, not right-to-use contracts, and reviewed the maintenance fee statements to confirm both accounts were current.
• Called the owner services or homeowner relations department at each resort and asked directly whether a deed-back or surrender program existed, getting the eligibility requirements and any fee in writing.
• For the interest that qualified for deed-back, completed that process and kept the recorded confirmation for the Medicaid file.
• For the interest that did not qualify for deed-back, listed it with a licensed timeshare resale broker at a realistic price and obtained a written statement describing the unit's limited resale market.
• Kept every maintenance fee receipt and every piece of correspondence with the resort and the broker, building a paper trail before submitting the ACCESS application.
• Presented the full documentation package to the DCF eligibility specialist at application, rather than waiting for a request for information, to support exclusion of the unsold interest as a good faith effort to sell.

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice, nor does reading it create an attorney-client relationship. Florida estate, elder, probate, and real estate law are fact-specific and change over time. Consult a licensed Florida attorney about your individual circumstances. Arthur Simpson, Esq. is licensed to practice law in the State of Florida. Attorney advertising.