Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Sorry to hear that you got bad news about your job upon return from vacation. The starting points for a lawyer trying to assist you would be (a) what state's law is going to govern? and (b) what do the papers you signed say?

Perhaps the timeshare is in California, in which case California law is likely (but not certain) to govern your deal, but hearing that you signed up for this timeshare while on vacation opens a host of possibilities, as we know that a LOT of time-share activity is in other states like Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada and Florida, or even in non-U.S. jurisdictions such as Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Then, a lawyer would want to look at every paper and every clause in most of the papers, to look for:

(1) Deceptive promises in the glitterature;

(2) Proper disclosures;

(3) Applicable law selection clauses;

(4) Dispute-jurisdiction selection clauses;

(5) Rights of rescission;

(6) Whether what you bought was real property or a personal-property right in real property;

(7) Whether you bought an interest in real property or merely have a conditional sale agreement or so-called "contract for deed;"

(8) What you agreed to in the way of financing and whether and how the financing can be enforced against you if you default; and

(9) The attorney should look for mediation, arbitration and attorney-fee provisions.

The really big issues are what law is applicable and what do the papers say.