Hacienda Encantada Resort & Residences

We arrived at HE on March 25, approached by concierge to attend time share presentation the next day. Free breakfast if we said yes . Introduced to our contact Keith who showed us around the property buttering up every conceivable great thing about HE. Took us to a big room with lots of other people at different tables. Started asking questions, of course he couldn’t answer. So he brought Al, the closer, to the table because he knew more. Al starts laying out his sales pitch with blue and green felt pens. Telling us this was an investment opportunity. To buy a 2 bedroom villa, a foreclosure for a fractional ownership in beautiful HE! The original real estate equity price was $210k. But he said we get a bonus with the foreclosure and instead start at $142k We were not interested because we told him we already had a time share back home. No problem he was taking $68,000 off for a trade-in on our original time share. Al said they would buy out the contract, the other place they won’t even know about it. Later, we found out from our existing time share that a corporation can not purchase a contract with them. The lies and deceit continue at every turn. When we hesitated, he insisted on another 10 percent off for paying cash! Now our price was $67,410. Add closing costs for a grand total of $70,510.

All the while stressing our HOA/maintenance fees would only be $2300 and guaranteed not to go up more than 5% a year! But the best part is that we would get revenue from the rent that others would pay when we traded those weeks for Elite Alliance points. A 3 year property management @ $5k per week for two weeks was what we were told. Revenue we could use to pay our HOA fees. Then we could have a free vacation! Reading many online reviews, no one has received a penny from rent money!

We asked about selling the time share, no problem we could do so in three years. They would buy it back and we would get 75% of the real estate equity. It was certainly going to appreciate! They talked about the development next to HE. The Four Seasons is building a resort next door and that was going to drive up the value of HE properties. Even if it stayed at the present value of $210,000 we would earn $157,500. A great investment Al boasted! More than doubling your money in three short years!

According to our contract we cannot use the villa for 2 years. And will not have to pay our maintenance fee until we come back to HE in two years. At this point we got suspicious again stopping the pressure. We were saying no we weren’t interested because of the fees. This has been going on for 4 hours, Al gave us a minute and then came back with nothing but good comments about what a great opportunity this was as an investment. He said he’ll throw in 2 free spas worth over $500. We again were concerned that there was a no cancellation and non-refundable clause. Because the fractional was a foreclosure this was a one day opportunity. We knew nothing of the rescission period of 5 days. Exhausted we agreed. You should have seen how fast the paperwork rolled out! We read a few things asking questions before signing. How impatient they got when we took too much time. There was so much paperwork to look at. As soon as we agreed to purchase, of course they wanted a credit card for the $70,510. We each put $25k on our cards maxing them out. We could not pay the full amount because money was needed to be withdrawn from our 401k to pay down the credit card balance in order to charge the remaining balance. Al called his boss Ed over and Ed said they would post date the remaining balance charge to our credit card by 10 days giving us plenty of time to make the withdrawal and payment.

Ed earlier introduced himself to us when he found out we were from his original home town of St. Louis. Making us feel more comfortable dealing with a home town connection. Bad decision on our part. Big boss Ed was no better than his pushy closer.

When we went to use our free spa for purchasing the time share we were told there’s additional charges of $80. More than likely the real cost of the free spa! Reluctantly we paid it. Another mistake.

Friends arrived to stay with us on Monday. So we did not look at the massive amount of paperwork until we got home the following Sunday. Well past the the 5 day rescission period that we were never informed about.

Sending an email to Al with more questions about the contract we still did not fully understand. Asking him to call us. Of course he never did. Called him two days later and his so called girlfriend answered the phone giving us a phony excuse he was busy. But she told us to call back in 10 minutes. Called back and Al answered apologizing for not returning our call because he got busy. We talked for 25 minutes where he smoothed over all of our questions with the same bs in Mexico.

Prior to the phone call to Al we contacted our credit card company and put a dispute on the charges and a do not pay for the final charge. Reading online reviews where others did not pay their fees or mortgage payments and HE put liens on them and tried to destroy their credit ratings . Again we reluctantly repented. Sent an email to Ed the boss begging him to cancel this contract and to refund our money due to financial and mental distress. No response. Feel completely raped!

In 2016 we purchased a one bedroom at Hacienda Encantada. The main reason for purchasing was the promise that they would guarantee rental weeks that would pay you the equivalent of your maintenance fee. We were also enticed by the Walk Away Insurance that would buy back your investment after 10 years for twice what we paid for it. Such a deal, right? Wrong, the rental company we had to use was totally unresponsive and when I contacted H.E. was told that I would have to use a 3rd party to rent the week, but I was responsible for whomever rented the week. The Walk Away Insurance that "guaranteed" to buy back in 10 years has fine print that states only 1 out of 10 will be considered for buy back. We will never stay at H.E. as this experience has left us very upset.

We bought into this vacation ownership, seemed ok that year then every year after that it just went down hill the lights and air conditioning units didn’t work. They would move you to rooms with similar issues that others have already been moved out of. We paid the upgrade to get away from those issues in the residence villas. The villa itself was good the first year but the pool was still under construction. We accepted that and used other pools on the property. But now after five years the villas outdoor pool facilities still doesn’t operate correctly the hot tub is not hot at all. The villa fills with mosquitoes every night. We are done waisting our vacation time on these issues. They moved us also to a room now where the pools work but the jackhammering from the construction a 100ft away and traffic noise from the road is insane.

Never been a true vacation.

So how do you sell back or deed back?

In 2007 my husband and I purchased a studio from Hacienda Encantada while Phase 1 was still under construction. We were 1 of the first guests to stay at the Resort.
Through the years we have enjoyed our stay and have had no complaints and have been pleased to see the new additions to the property.
However, in 2016 while spending my week, I was approached by a sales person from Walk Away Assurance. The presentation sounded as if it would provide some "peace of mind" in years to come so I gave them a check for $2500.00.
Now I understand that the company is no where to be found !
How did it happen that the Hacienca Encantada did not fully vet this company before allowing them to conduct business on their property.
I want every penny of my $2500.00 back.
Esther Chambers

We are founding members of HE, We paid 99, 000 plus our 2 bedroom unit with two fixed weeks. On one of our trips we were approached to join in a "Walk Away Assurance " program. We paid an addition $2500.00.
We have tried many times to initiate this program in 2021 (5 year) to receive the 75% of our original cost of our unit. They is no longer of web site for Walk Away and have had not luck with Hacienda. What can we do now? I'm sure there are many people out there that this has happened to. We are now
considering joining the class action law suit!

Way Johnston

In May we went on vacation to Mexico on vacation and we stay at Hacienda Encantade through are exchange. During are stay we had to go to a presentaion on buying into there property. We made it perfectly cleared that we could not buy into the resort as we already have two timeshare. We were told that they can buy us out of are timeshare if we buy into there's. We told them that we are still paying on are other ones and they still said that they could still work with us. They would buy are timeshares and use them as a tax write off. We talked to them for about 6 hrs. We also told them at the time that we are Campfire surviors and that if we proceed with this purchase that we can not afford to make payment on 3 timeshares due to are current situation.The salesman assured us that you can stop your payments on your other timeshares when you agree to buy are's and get back to the United States. He informed us that a broker would be in contact withus in about 10 to 14 days. This never happen and now today we have 3 timeshares to pay on. When we sent a email to H.E. they forward are email to are sales person who in his email back was not customer friendly and he said that we need to get a hold of are other timeshares and get mutual release from are timeshares. We tryed that and are timeshare said there is no such thing. I beileved that we were taken advantage in current situation and lie to and I believe we were scammed. One other note that are last three days I had to take my wife to a Mexico hospital were she was there for 3 days due to a ulcer in her esophagus and her stomack. Which cost us $20.000.00. If you go to Cabo and stay at the H.E don't believe what they are saying to you as they will only tell what helps them to sell there propertys.