Several recent articles have denoted the recent wins of Timeshare Owners against their resorts. Following the two Supreme Court rulings in Spain over the last two years, the resorts are losing to their clients in respect of null and void contracts due to several factors; contracts in perpetuity, floating weeks or points and not having a cooling off period.
Well, the TCA can report again that in the last month there have been several more wins, against Anfi Sales and Silverpoint SL. Silverpoint have recently lost €90,000 in a battle in the Arona courts in Tenerife. The clients recuperated the initial purchase amount, double the total of maintenance fees from the offset, and double the deposit also including the legal costs and taxes. Silverpoint were guilty on three accounts here; taking a deposit within the cooling off period, missing vital contractual information and the contract having a term of longer than 50 years, ‘perpetuity’.
The two losses for Anfi Sales SL were somewhat of the same nature. However, the clients were completely mistreated by Anfi in one of the cases, where they were not even able to use their timeshare unit from the date of purchase. They were given the runaround, told that they had to pay maintenance fees before they booked (even though they had not received the bill), then when they finally did receive the bill, and paid it, tried to book again. They did manage to book accommodation, however, did not receive any confirmation of the booking and after several weeks awaiting the confirmation, called Anfi again. They were told that there was no booking in that name, and on top of that, there was now no availability. The unhappy clients decided to go ahead and book privately with another hotel and were left totally bemused by Anfi’s antics.
In this case the clients took Anfi to court, and lost. They appealed to the supreme court, and this time the court ruled in their favour, offering them 21,358€ with the addition of all legal fees to compensate their losses. It paid off for this client to appeal, especially as the Supreme court ruling for the perpetuity was heard in-between their county court hearing and the supreme court hearing.
In the second case against Anfi, another client has won 12,344€ plus legal fees. This case was heard in the courts of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, due to the contract containing floating weeks with vital contractual information missing. This news can only be good news for Timeshare owners that have been pressured into a sale that turned out to be something that it wasn’t. There are more and more reasons that resorts are being found guilty of mal practice in their sales and contracts between them and their clients. If you think that you have a claim, please get in touch on the number below, and we will endeavour to help in any way that we can.
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