Living with My ex-Husband, Once a Year

Q:        My friend has a timeshare with her husband 14 days every 2 years. They are filing for a divorce. They’ve separated and he lives with his new girl in a different state now. My friend made reservations for 6 days at their timeshare and asked me & my man if we would like to go with her. Between the 3 of us we agreed that since she has the timeshare that we will pay for the rental car, food, & round trip airline tickets. It’s all set and we’ve taken off work for the vacation and everything.  When her husband heard we were going to use the timeshare with his wife he flipped. Now he is harassing his wife almost every day by email. He says he will cancel our reservations unless we pay the going rate to rent this timeshare for 6 days.  But his wife is the one that invited us as guests.
My concern is can he do this? What are her legal rights as 1/2 Owner of Timeshare? Can she go to jail for doing this? I’m sorry but I didn’t see any wrong doing here. We thought we were doing the right thing by purchasing everything else to help out and this way we all can have a nice vacation. Well not if her husband has any say in this. Help PLEASE!

Signed,

Ready to hit the Beach!

Dear Ready,

Until the court officially divides the property of the parties, it is still owned jointly by both of them. The problem is that your friend acted without the permission of the co-owner of the timeshare (who happens to be her husband) and without a court order.  If anyone owes you the time or money back, unfortunately it is probably your friend and not her husband.

That said, the husband could be nice about it, or could be a jerk about it. I am sorry for you and for your friend that he is not choosing to be nice about the timeshare.  I suspect it will be one of many petty disputes between the two of them.  My best suggestion to you personally is to stay as far out of it as possible.

If you all have time and money set aside for a vacation, take it anyway – just don’t go to the disputed timeshare!  There are websites where people let you rent out their timeshares for below cost.  Do a little more research and you will all still get to have a fun vacation together, leaving the angry ex behind!

What We Love: As bad as this woman’s situation might be, she is lucky enough to have friends who want to go on vacation with her.   Divorce can be hard; a relaxing trip with good friends is always a great idea!