TATOC and RDO members, Silverpoint, formally Resort Properties, finished last week much as it started it – dreadfully!
After our last two articles, the information being published regarding The Supreme Court ruling, which is the highest legal authority in Spain, regarding Silverpoints Club Paradiso product, seems to be even more damning as to the severity of this case.
The escalation to this point began with over 40 cases being won against Silverpoint at the first stages. These clients won their cases based on the timeshare law 42/98.
Silverpoint had no choice but to pay the clients or to appeal the decision and take it to The High Court, so they appealed the rulings.
The High Court overturned many of rulings made by the lower courts. The overturned clients did not take this lying down, nor did the legal professionals involved. They knew that there were grounds to keep the initial decisions in place and if they were, this would lead the way for many more timeshare owners. They escalated the cases further to The Supreme Court and asked for the cases to be reviewed once again.
The first ruling from The Supreme Court revision has confirmed Silverpoints contracts to be null and void and compensation to be paid back to the clients.
The Supreme Court confirmed that Silverpoints high end product, Club Paradiso, should be included within the timeshare legislation, even though it is a “club membership” without a fixed apartment number or week. Many resorts that initially sold fixed apartment and week contracts have forced changes through their committees so the constitution and contracts become floating, in the hope this would alleviate them from prosecution under timeshare law – unfortunately for them, this has backfired even further.
9 Supreme Court Judges presided over the case files in order to make a ruling which would stand strong against all the future cases they knew would come. The ruling said that as the contract was sold with an “affiliation to a club” this product is timeshare, the fact that it was deliberately constituted not to be regulated by the law, means it in itself is in infringement of the law.
The Judges highlighted that Club Paradiso members had to pay a yearly maintenance fee, this is a clear indication of the timeshare product. Not including a clear description of the product within the contract, also null and voids the purchase under article 1.7 of the 42/98 Spanish Timeshare Act.
This will have a huge knock on affect for all other Club Paradiso members to begin their claim, as well as many other club / membership / / point systems within Spain.
Silverpoints business plan was to get many consumers purchasing multiple weeks, more weeks than they could use or afford the yearly maintenance on, giving them false hope that they would sell before they needed to worry about that, but in reality knowing this would strong arm them into trading up into one much larger “investment” that had a much smaller yearly fee, compared to the ten yearly fees they were faced with!
Silverpoint are one of TATOCs largest members/financial backers, if this is how they do business then one must question the credibility of the TATOC verification process. It backs up the stories that TATOC is nothing more than a front for the corruption.
If you are a Silverpoint or Resort Properties owner, now is the time to review your purchase. Call the TCA for advice now.
For more information regarding this article or assistance in any other timeshare related issues please contact the TCA on 01908 881058 or email: info@TimeshareConsumerAssociation.org.uk