Orange County is offering up for auction 114 timeshares at four coastal resorts to recover unpaid taxes.
The auction, which was split with a first one held in late June, is the first by Orange County since 2021 and comes amid a vacation rental market that has remained flat since coming out of the pandemic in 2022.
A lukewarm auction June 25 only brought two dozen bidders on two timeshares and nine pieces of vacant land, ranging from tough terrain in Silverado Canyon to cliffside property in Laguna Beach.
A timeshare is a property that’s essentially split among multiple owners, each getting the right to use the unit for a set time each year, usually a week.
A second auction is planned to garner more interest — though only seven bidders have registered for it as of Wednesday, Sept. 3, said Shari Freidenrich, Orange County Treasurer-Tax Collector.
To bid in the online auction, registrants must pay a non-refundable $35 fee and a refundable deposit of $100 by 1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12. Minimum bids on the timeshares range from $100-$500, down from the minimum of $1,000 set during the June offering.
The auction — scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. Sept. 17 — could fetch up to $325,000 in unpaid back taxes, penalties and sales costs, if the maximum bids are made on all the timeshares, according to Freidenrich.
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The four resorts where timeshares are available for auction include Marriott’s Newport Coast Villas, a premium brand with 20 timeshares that can be exchanged at other intervals throughout the world; Laguna Shores, which is managed by Tricom Management; San Clemente Cove, also managed by Tricom; and San Clemente Inn, run by Grand Pacific Resorts in Carlsbad.
Full listings and parcel details, including unpaid tax statements, are accessible through the OC Treasurer-Tax Collector’s Office or directly at the vendor auction tax link run by Maryland-based Bid4Assets Inc., a liquidity services marketplace.
Patrick Fernane, general manager with San Clemente Inn, declined to comment on the auction process. Spokespersons with Marriott and Tricom could not be reached for comment.
Each timeshare has at least one unpaid property tax installment over five years and will be withdrawn if property taxes are paid in full by 5 p.m., Sept. 16, according to Freidenrich.
“We want to give every opportunity for these properties to be sold and returned to productive use, while also ensuring transparency and fairness for all bidders,” Freidenrich said.
Counties hold tax sales each year, auctioning off real estate that has property taxes due for at least five years. The proceeds of the sales cover the unpaid taxes, while the property owners have a year to claim any “excess proceeds.”
The timeshare market has stalled in recent years.
Sales revenue by timeshare developers and operators fell less than 1% — to $10.5 billion 2024 — staying about the same as other years leading up to the pandemic in 2000, and from 2022 going forward. The market totalled about $4.9 billion in sales in 2020 — the first year of the pandemic — and steadily climbed to $8.1 billion in 2021 and over $10 billion ever since, according to the most recent estimate by the American Resort Development Association.
Association figures show there were 461,420 transactions in 2024, with prices per timeshare averaging $23,160, down about 4.1% from the prior year.
Buyer beware
Mitchell Reed Sussman of Corona del Mar, an attorney specializing in getting people out of their timeshare contracts, cautioned potential bidders against thinking that they might get a bargain in the auction. He claims that Orange County is one of the few counties that auctions off “liabilities” for timeshare owners in California.
He explained that consumers basically buy the liability — and not the asset — from the county after paying off the paid taxes. The bidder is still obligated to pay annual membership dues and other fees associated with the timeshare that can amount to “thousands of dollars.” It’s a way of circumventing the initiation fees, he said.
“So, basically you’ve got to really want to live in a timeshare owned by Marriott, right?” said Sussman. “You’re buying the right to join the club without an initiation fee, but you still have to pay membership dues and other costs, otherwise you will not gain access to anything, like the swimming pool and other amenities. Winning bidders do not acquire the right to do anything without the permission of Marriott, under their terms and conditions.”
Freidenrich disagreed with the novelty of the timeshare auctions, citing similar auctions in held in resort areas throughout California, including the Lake Tahoe, Palm Springs and Yosemite National Park region.
Orange County’s property tax collection rate hit a record 99.2 percent for the year ended June 30, 2025, which Freidenrich described as the “top secured collection rate” in the state.