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Silverpoint are justifiably coming under extreme scrutiny lately, once again hitting the headlines with a number of court cases in relation to timeshare fractional points and contracts made in perpetuity.

Timeshare owners at Palm Beach Club in Tenerife, were notified back in 2014 that Silverpoint, formally known as Resort Properties, were going to start ‘relieving’ them of their fixed week/s, despite the fact that these owners were happy with their life long purchase of their timeshare unit in that specific resort.  Many felt comfortable with Palm Beach Club, holidaying there, year after year, having made many friends who ‘holidayed’ at the same time; happy in the knowledge that they believed they could continue to use that specific unit at that certain time for the rest of their lives.

The Resort Development Organisation (RDO) have offered no assistance to owners regarding this, although they stipulate they work on behalf of the timeshare consumer and the resort alike, their actions seem to assist the resorts more than their ‘members’.  In exchange for their fixed week/s, Palm Beach Club timeshare owners are being offered fractional points at their Hollywood Mirage Club, in Los Cristianos.  Silverpoint claim that this will benefit the owners in the long term as the reduction of the apartments in Hollywood Mirage will mean they will no longer have to pay ever increasing maintenance fees.

They explain in their committee report:

“The proposal is; Silverpoint will swap weeks they own in the remaining units to allow members to be consolidated into fewer apartments to allow the release of the apartments identified. The idea going forward is then to remove a unit each time that 52 weeks of a specific type of unit are cancelled thus allowing the club to continually be right sized and have the appropriate maintenance fees. This will relieve the Club of a proportionate part of the burden of maintaining the entire resort.’’

There has reportedly been a similar situation for timeshare owners at Beverly Hills Heights as the resort was sold and is now effectively a hotel, with apartments being rented out to the general public. They again were notified that they were being moved to Hollywood Mirage.  Some of these owners had already experienced this as they had initially owned their fixed week/s at the Beverly Hills Club before being moved to Beverly Hills Heights.

Within the first three months of this year, the Supreme Court has made five rulings against Resort Properties / Silverpoint, alongside numerous judgements at the courts of First Instance and High Courts in Tenerife.  The Supreme Court ruled that floating weeks and points systems are illegal.

One of Palm Beach Club owners, Mrs Dutton, is not taking this lying down.  Mrs Dutton, who owned several weeks, alongside a group of similar owners have decided to take this to further, declaring that ‘Silverpoint are in breach of fiduciary duties’.

Silverpoint is not the only timeshare company that is carrying out these swaps, with the demise in timeshare sales, and the rise in maintenance fees for existing ownerships, there are more and more resorts following suit, to be able to keep up with the maintenance and upkeep of the resorts.

We are interested in hearing from any owners in resorts that are trying to swap out the fixed week contracts for points, or weeks in a resort where they have never previously owned.

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