My view is that although they have the power, I would refrain from calling it a right. It is not reasonable in any stretch of the imagination for Disney to not have a responsibility for resale value.
ROFR is solely about establishing a certain re-sale value. Maintaining and updating properties is partially about retaining retaining a re-sale value. Changing benefits was solely about lowering the value so Disney can profit at current owners expense.
In my opinion Disney has also devalued direct purchase ownership and in the long run my effect sales. By making a DVC ownership worthless on the secondary market they have taken away a key purchasing point.
king974:
Many on the boards claim that many (some even say most) direct buyers don't even look into resale and/or don't care about resale as they claim they are likely never going to sell (as I have said, I hope these people's lives continue without any possible financial issues that may cause them to have to sell). I find this absolutely baffling and amazing. If one buys 250 points at BLT for $110 that is a $27,500 purchase!! People buy home theater systems in the thousands and spend hours and hours researching which is the best. People spend hours reseaching what car to buy some of whom even think about resale. (Toyota's advertising talks about it.) The list goes on and on. To think that someone makes a $27500 purchase without wondering what would happen if they have to sell, makes no sense to me at all unless one has unlimited funds.
So I too feel this may come back to haunt DVC/Disney down the rode with direct sales. DVC /Disney may be surprised to find out that resale value actually may have been a very key unstated selling point. History shows that DVC held its value better then some other timeshares hence why some may not have hesitated to purchase. That may change down the road.
I have monitored DVC resale values for years. There has been nothing but the economy and supply and demand for me to be concerned about relative to the resale values of my two owner interests. This new rule potentially changes everything.
In the meantime all we can do as owners is sell or hold on and hope that in the end it is not as bad as we expected.