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| Greetings! Welcome to yours2share's February 2008 newsletter. In this edition:
Visit us at the One Life exhibition at Olympia, London yours2share will be at the One Life exhibition at Olympia in London from Friday 29th February to Sunday 2nd March 2008. You might wonder what has changing your life, by retraining, travelling, volunteering, redressing the life/work balance or whatever, got to do with sharing stuff. Well, after talking to many yours2share members, I've realised that many people who visit yours2share are looking to change their lives in some way. They've identified what they want to do and if they can't afford to do what they want alone, then they've identified a way forward if they can find a partner. This is where yours2share can help. We have ads from people looking for partners to own and run a dog rescue/kennels/pet shop, own and run a centre for healing, share their farm, share their Provencal home for several months a year, share an ocean-going yacht to travel round the world, and many others. Maybe they want to learn to fly: sharing a light aircraft is a good way forward; or perhaps they want to ride more often, so they could share a horse. Do come and visit us at stand 34, we would be delighted to see you. Making property fractional ownership work I had a long chat with Brad Lincoln of the Best Group a couple of weeks ago. The Best Group is one of the market leaders in arranging fractional ownership of luxury properties. They are also consultants to many fractional developments and they have extensive knowledge of the legal, financial and tax implications of fractional ownership in many countries. One of yours2share's, and anyone working in fractional ownership's, biggest difficulties is the wide range of laws and financial aspects relating to shared ownership in all countries. Brad brought my attention to the implications of setting up fractional ownership arrangements in Spain. The Spanish legislation for timeshare agreements starts with a sweeping definition of timeshare which apparently means that any agreement to use property on a rotating basis is defined as timeshare. Any timeshare agreement then has several onerous requirements, including precluding any ownership by the people using the property on a rotating basis. Spanish lawyers are still working out exactly what this means for fractional ownership - it isn't clear. Working within the law is therefore challenging, but it is possible. You will need specialist legal advice. Many other countries also have completely different laws that make fractional ownership demanding. Best Group offers consultations to private individuals considering fractionalising their homes, creating a new syndicate, or selling a share in an existing syndicate. Best Group is offering yours2share members a special price for this consultation, please contact me if you are interested. Informal car clubs More and more people are joining car clubs: they realise that owning a car is expensive, particularly if they only use the car a few times a week. Any syndicate set up to own a car jointly is known as a car club. Because most existing car clubs are managed by commercial companies, they are nearly all based in major cities because the clubs need to be running many cars if they are to make a profit. But what if you live in a town or village and would like to reduce your car costs, but keep the flexibility of having a car when you need it? If two or more people get together to own and run a car, they can create their own informal car club. We've just added some detailed guidance on setting up and running an informal car club with the help of City Car Clubs . All that is missing is the people to share the car with. They should be like-minded people whose use of a car is compatible with each other. (If everyone wants to use the car every Saturday morning, then it won't work.) Finding compatible like-minded partners is exactly what yours2share was designed for. What car is your boat? I thought writing a blog would be hard work and I wasn't at all sure I'd be able to write three or four items a week, but I'm beginning to enjoy myself (I just hope everyone else enjoys it too). In a recent piece I discussed my visit to the London Boat Show. One objective of my trip was to extend my knowledge of boat manufacturers beyond knowing simply which make boat with sails, or not. Those that make both kinds of boat still confuse me. I know this is basic stuff but the Dover-Calais ferry was my entire experience of boats until a year ago I wanted to understand the boat pecking order: which are the most and least expensive and why. This is not easy for a lay person to understand and not the most tactful question to ask hopeful sales people. Fortunately, John Mallows of myboatshare helped me out. He found it easier to explain to me if we equated boat manufacturers to car manufacturers, So we had a happy conversation working them out. If you love boats, do have a look and let me know if you agree with our views or not , or can add any more boat and their "car". And finally, here are a few of yours2share's recent ads that I really like:
We are always delighted to receive feedback. Kind regards Sophie Garrett yours2share share valuable assets with like-minded people |
