Welcome to the last Friday of January and what a month it has been, we began the year with the news of several Club la Costa sales companies going into liquidation, news that has been seized upon by some of the less reputable companies that have emerged. According to our readers, they have been told that it is Club la Costa itself that is going into liquidation and they will lose their timeshares. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. It has also been a very bad and expensive month for Anfi. They have consistently lost all cases in the Court of First Instance, lodged appeals with the High Court, only to have them dismissed and rejected. They have also been forced to pay out to clients, who now have the money secured in their own accounts.
On 6 January, while Spain was celebrating Day of the Kings, we received news of a very important case against Diamond Resorts in the Court of First Instance in Fuengirola. The case centred around jurisdictional issues of the contract.
As we have explained before, many timeshare companies like Diamond and Club la Costa have a clause in their contracts which claim that the contract is subject to UK law and the jurisdiction of UK courts. Even though the purchase was made in Spain, deposits paid in Spain and the contract signed in Spain, thereby denying the legal rights afforded to consumers under Spanish law.
As with the other jurisdictional cases including those of Club la Costa, the court ruled as per the judgements of many High Court hearings, that Spanish law and courts take precedence and do have full jurisdiction. This is a blow to the timeshare companies who have used this to “escape” the strict regulations governing the sale of timeshare.
It should also be pointed out at this point, that this is also a breach of the “Code of Conduct” laid down by the trade body the RDO, whose code clearly states:
“To comply with all laws, which apply to Member’s, business in the jurisdiction in which the Member operates.”
It doesn’t get any clearer than that.
We then began our series of articles about the ongoing battle between Azure clients, Barclays Partner Finance and the Financial Regulation Authority. This is around the loan agreements brokered by Azure, who for almost two years was not “authorised” to broker these loans.
As part of this series, we published the personal story of one family and how they ended up being sold a timeshare by Azure with so many false promises and the ubiquitous BPF loan. The story follows the problems this has caused especially with the passing of one of the partners. The article is called The Story of Smoke and Mirrors.
We also brought you news from around the courts in Spain, with some rather good results from two law firms and one independent lawyer.
The cases ranged from First Instance trials, appeals to the High Court, Jurisdictional issues and then embargos to force payments. All in all, it was an expensive week for timeshare.
There was also a visit to articles published by the TCA, the first was on the confusion around the Club la Costa liquidations, which has been extensively covered by the TCA and Inside Timeshare. They also published another scathing article on the timeshare industry, this time regarding the availability at Diamond Resorts through independent booking sites.
Again this is a subject that Inside Timeshare has covered, not just for Diamond but all the major timeshare resorts. The fact that non-members are able to book at these resorts, usually cheaper than members pay in maintenance fees, plus without the huge initial outlay to join, is, to say the least totally unfair.
We then ran two articles on the timeshare industry, focusing on the replacement for TATOC, to “represent” timeshare “owners”, this is called EUROC, European Resort Owners Coalition. The articles asked the question “do they actually represent you the members”? The answer to that we leave you to decide, we know what our answer is.
We then published an update on Themis Resolution, a “company” which does not appear to be registered either in Spain or the UK. Certainly doesn’t look good.
Then for our friends across the pond, we issued a warning on a scam operating out of Mexico, the Modus Operandi is very similar to a previous one and also mirrors that of our friends the Litigious Abogados Family.
We then continued to look at the RDO and EUROC with Timeshare Industry Denies the Truth.
In this article, we looked at one of their own members, our old friends at Anfi. It highlighted the breaches that this company has made in not just Spanish timeshare law, but also against the Code of Conduct of the RDO. It also asked the question, why this organisation does not “sanction” their members for these breaches? Again we leave you to make up your own mind, we know what we think.
We end this week with the happy news for one English client who won their case at the Court of First Instance against Anfi. Then to find that Anfi had as they always do to delay proceedings had lodged an appeal with the High Court.
While this was going on the “provisional execution order” had been put into place, this resulted in money being secured from an embargo against a tax refund that was due to Anfi.
The client who was represented by Canarian Legal Alliance has now received over 11,000€ into their account and are also timeshare and maintenance-free.
That is it for this week, we hope that you have enjoyed reading the articles and we welcome your comments and views. Join us again next week for more in the murky world of timeshare.
Have a great weekend.
