Most of what you've described can also be applied to condominiums. The only difference is that you can occupy them year round, but I don't think that's a relevant difference. Are the "fundamental economics" of those also "a scam"?
Timeshare owners are generally not represented by a committee of other owners, the money does not go to things approved by them, and the company makes no promises about acting in the interest of timeshare owners.
So yeah, you are contractually obligated to pay fees for a space you can occupy is where they are similar. There's a reason that timeshares almost never appreciate, often being given away for free, where a condo tends to hold value or appreciate.
As a fun little bit of anecdata, newer buildings are always the worst with many leftover, teething issues and strata title can sometimes be heavily in debt. Old buildings can have huge amounts in the sinking fund and may elect to reduce yearly fees and rely on interest.
Most people think it's a pretty relevant difference. For one thing, if you occupy a place year-round, you can keep your belongings in it. That's a pretty significant feature for most people, which is the reason most people choose to live in a permanent domicile rather than moving every week. But different strokes for different folks I guess.
Most vacation destinations are somewhat seasonal. Maybe the most major cities with year round cultural activities, but not in places like beach and ski towns.
You can potentially have 52 "1-week-a-year" people fighting over the 16-20 weeks a year the location is most desirable, and maybe settling for lesser times, or just not using it that year. Hell, why not sell 60 memberships, knowing some will just punt in any given year?
well actually... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax#Places_without_pr...
But yes, that's true about property taxes. But since that's a commonality between condos and otherwise-individually-owned property it doesn't really matter. In a condo you pay both, but if you own outright you only pay one. In a rental you're kinda paying both combined, because the owner pays property taxes and then presumably also tries to extract profit.
Anyways, I don't agree that condos are a scam in the same way that timeshares are, and I don't think a condo is just a glorified rental (though the one condo I have owned in my life had absurdly high fees that I regretted getting myself into) or a scam like timeshares are. I was just trying to explain what I though the GP meant.
Did you ever look HOA financial docs that details exactly what the HOA spent money on?
It was, unfortunately, just a very bad situation for the building, which was aging poorly from its origins as a low unit count high value building with a lot of expensive amenities, windows that couldn't handle changing climate, a parkade that needed deep structural work, having been built when asbestos was in vogue, and a population that was once wealthy but was now largely on fixed incomes and declining property value.
No one did anything wrong (except maybe a few attempts to fix the parkade in overly optimistic and superficial ways that required re-fixing at more expense later), it just wasn't worth condo fees ballooning well past my mortgage payments and it ended up costing well hundreds of $k to sell and doing so was one of the most stressful times of my life.
None of that means "condos are always bad". Just this one was a mistake.
If you mean what I said about HOA vs condo fees, I've only ever seen HOA used for detached homes or townhouses, where the common concerns are a lot less critical than in an apartment building (and so, from what I know, tend to be more frivolous). But maybe it's used differently elsewhere.
The main difference between a condo association and an HOA here is what kind of property is involved. But HOAs are also a relatively recent development here and aren't regulated as strongly so they vary more.
> A timeshare (sometimes called vacation ownership) is a property with a divided form of ownership or use rights. These properties are typically resort condominium units, in which multiple parties hold rights to use the property, and each owner of the same accommodation is allotted their period of time. Units may be sold as a partial ownership, lease, or "right to use", in which case the latter holds no claim to ownership of the property. The ownership of timeshare programs is varied, and has been changing over the decades.
That obviously has a big impact on resell value - so much to the point that some timeshare owners can't give it away let alone sell it, because no one wants to be beholden to the maintenance fees.
Depending on specifics you even get partial ownership of the whole building and a seat on its management board. At least that’s how it works for my mom, they run the building like a co-op and there is no other owner than the people who own the apartments inside.
edit: a timeshare in comparison is kinda like buying an NFT of an apartment. It gives you the right (obligation) to use the place for a period of time every year
https://thehotelskills.com/different-between-time-share-and-...
2. If in some hypothetical world, you were unhappy with the fees, and you couldn't sell your condo, you can walk away from it anytime you want, and all you're out is the purchase cost of the condo.
3. You can't do that with the timeshare. You need to find another sucker to take the timeshare off your hands.
4. For what you get out of it, the cost of owning/renting a timeshare versus owning/renting a condo is horribly tilted against the timeshare.
5. Which is why intelligent people will pay a million dollars for a condo, but only idiots buy timeshares.
6. Which why you get screwed if you want to do #2, because of #3.
The reason people buy timeshares is because they are bad at math, bad at finances, and don't understand that they are getting fleeced.
Timeshares don't necessarily have to be shitty scams, it's entirely possible to design one that isn't a waste of money. But in practice, all of them are.