Thanks to our friends at After Inside Timeshare we report that the MacDonald resort at Plas Talgarth, located on the edge of Snowdonia National Park, Wales’s largest National park appears to have been put on the market.
Knight Frank, one of the UK’s oldest and most prestigious estate agents have listed the resort for sale, here is a summary of the listing:
- 77 units comprising studios, one bed, two beds and three-bedroom apartments totalling 184 bedrooms
- Situated within a 15-minute drive from the coast (St George’s Channel)
- Attractive Grade II Listed Georgian Mansion House
- Extensive leisure centre with a spacious gymnasium, indoor swimming pool, steam room, sauna and Jacuzzi as well as an outdoor swimming pool to the rear of the Mansion House
- Spa facilities comprising four treatment rooms, a relaxation room plus pedicure and manicure stations
- Large event space, the Village Hall, popular for weddings and corporate events as well as two squash courts, offering an ideal location for additional event space, subject to redevelopment
- Significant development potential comprising 15 lodges, and residential apartments plus refurbishment to the existing bedrooms and reconfiguration of the leisure facilities
- Held freehold and has been in the same ownership for 32 years
The listing also confirms that the property is freehold with vacant possession, now that raises an interesting question.
Vacant possession
Rather than try to explain vacant possession, we once again refer to the dictionary definition:
Any previous owner or tenant having departed. As the majority of MacDonald timeshare owners are holding points based contracts, our supposition is that the prospective sale of this resort simply means there is one less resort to choose from for holidays. This sort of contraction is not overly unusual, MGM sold the Royal Park Albatross, Tenerife, Seasons Holidays have put their lodges at Slaley Hall up for sale, also they have effectively cut off the use of their Dylan Coastal Resort, although at the time of writing, neither have actually been put up for sale.
So although annoying for points owners, one has to ask the question, if there are some of the old style fixed week owners at the resort, what will become of them?
TCA Comment
Overall we can say without much fear of contradiction, MacDonald Resorts don’t have a particularly savoury reputation amongst their timeshare owners. From their rigid and extremely expensive exit options, through to their aggressive debt collection methods for those who default on paying maintenance fees, all have done little to endear favour amongst owners.
As we have mentioned before, the last published accounts we could find at Companies House for MacDonald Resorts Ltd showed an operating loss of £8.3m. According to Knight Frank, offers required for the resort property should be in excess of £5.5m, if sold that may help shore up the hole in the accounts. When a company has to sell off the family silver it’s never a good sign. Dynamic profitable timeshare companies build bigger and better resorts and rarely sell resorts.
TCA would also like to have a guess that who might purchase this magnificent venue but we won’t. What we would say is that it’s extremely unlikely that it will be another timeshare developer. That being the case, points owners, tough luck, you simply have one less venue to go to. Fixed week owners, well as the property is being sold with vacant possession, it looks like you’ve already been evicted!
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