Anfi resorts, once the envy of many other timeshare developers is now facing even more problems. Over the past two weeks two interesting pieces of news have been published, the first concerns the years old battle to develop Tauro beach. The little known beach on the south west of Gran Canaria has been making big waves, again, following more than 30 years of talk, 20 years of hype, 16 years of planning procedures and 6 years of controversy in the hands of the recently bankrupted Hermanos Santana Cazorla SL (more on this later). It appears the long awaited Tauro Beach project has finally been cancelled, after years of intrigue, investigations, recriminations and shifting sands.
Problems with this project were myriad. More than 50 legal objections had been made to the plans from various quarters claiming a total lack of consultation, inadequate permissions from property owners, deficient environmental impact studies and a raft of other complaints, including allegations from almost all of the local residents who would be directly affected, many of whom have lived on the shoreline of the Tauro bay for decades.
The final nail was the import of sand from the Western Sahara which is currently illegal as part of sanctions imposed by the United Nations and the EU. If this wasn’t bad enough local mariners, who understand the tides on that coastline, were dubious about how long the sands would last. For the first time in living memory, the sea flooded in over the freshly landscaped beach to inundate the homes of residents, most of whom could ill afford such a disastrous occurrence. Of course this storm washed away most of the new sand which reportedly cost €2.5m to import and spread.
The Cazorla affair
Following the above, news hit the Gran Canaria press recently that Hermanos Santana Cazorla SL had been declared insolvent by the island courts, sums in excess of €70m deficit have been quoted. We know that 50% of the shareholding in Anfi is owned by the German company IFA who are in turn are owned by the Spanish company Lopesan. The remaining 50% shares are owned by Grupo Santana Carzola.
Jose Luis Trujillo who is the General Manager of the Anfi Group took to writing a letter to all members dated March 31st stating that Hermanos Santana Carzola SL, although part of the Grupo Santana Carzola have nothing to do with Anfi. He did couch the news by stating, and we quote:
“As the Anfi Group has no direct relationship to the company Hermanos Santana Carzola SL, we have not received any further information. However, if any further information of interest is to be made available, we will inform accordingly.” (The letter may be downloaded here.)
Although this letter is brief and obviously designed to calm the nerves of anxious Anfi owners, the statement above would seem to indicate that all is not 100% clear at present. Naturally TCA will report further on any developments.
Finally
Both news items above don’t make for great confidence in the path forward for the Anfi Group. On top of this, factor in the vast number of claims filed against Anfi for the selling of illegal timeshare contracts, which run into millions of Euro’s and it’s fair to say that the future, compared with the original dream, is not looking at all rosy. Will Anfi implode on itself? We doubt it but we think it would be fair to say that big changes are on the horizon.
If you own at Anfi and are at all concerned regarding the current developments, feel free to call us.
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