News has reached us from some rather disgruntled timeshare owners who have all stated that their ownership will be cancelled with effect from the end of this year. This presents another sad indictment of the state of the timeshare industry in Europe. According to the communication from the resort, there is no buyback offer, however the costs involved in the transfer back to the resort, which are estimated at 1,000 CHF (£875) will be paid by the developer.
This is of little solace for those who have owned timeshare at the resort for many years. From our online chat service below is a comment from a very angry owner:
“Our timeshare in Switzerland “Les Naturelles” has decided to withdraw from running timeshare after almost twenty years. Can they simply say we’ll pay for your exit and that’s it, we have over one hundred thousand points which gets us accommodation all over the world; we depend upon it for the majority of our holidays. Can they simply walk away?”
Whilst this is very recent and TCA has only just been informed, we haven’t had the time to research and dig deeper, that said, when developers take this sort of action they tend to have taken expert legal advice to ensure their actions don’t contravene any laws. By way of an example would be the actions taken by Bristol based Seasons Holidays. Over the past few years, Seasons have closed the Slaley Hall Owners Club effectively removing the rights of timeshare owners to holiday there. Whilst this action may be deemed to be morally incorrect, the action was taken in line with the clubs constitution therefore legal. No doubt Seasons took legal advice and sought the agreement of the trustees before taking the action they did.
In the case of Les Naturelles, we are in no doubt that something similar is behind the stance the developer is taking. This is a pure assumption and one that needs further investigation on our part.
TCA Comment
Whilst Leukerbad isn’t Verbier or Klosters it still offers 50km of varied skiing including both Alpine and cross country and as such is a very popular winter destination. The resort and Les Naturelles are open all year round, in summer guests can enjoy mountain walks and hiking, from this it may be established that the area is popular with tourists.
In common with virtually every timeshare resort, Les Naturelles may be booked directly via online platforms:
An example of a one week holiday this month. One can only assume that the owners/developers of this hotel have calculated that they can make more money from regular visitors, as opposed to timeshare owners. The big money in timeshare is from the original sale, as the sale of new timeshare in Europe has all but dried up, then there’s probably more profit to be had at room rate rather than maintenance fees.
As we have said, this is breaking news and as soon as we have greater information we will publish further.
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
2 Responses
What timeshare owners need to remember is many resorts are leased to timeshare and not owned by the timeshare company you purchased from, just like TUI, Jet2 and other tour operators lease hotels and do not own them. This may just be the case with Les Naturelles.
Hi Charles, Thanks for your comment, good point reminiscent of Azure and Radisson Blu Golden Sands Malta.