Timeshare is not a cheap product, not just the ongoing costs of the annual maintenance fees, the costs of flights and not to forget the money required to feed and water your family during your stay, but the initial cost is high, to say the least. The average cost of a week’s worth of basic timeshare begins around the £10,000 mark, from many of the legal cases we have highlighted that cost has been two to four times that amount.
For those who became involved with Resort Properties which then became Silverpoint, we have seen figures going as high as £100,000, in some cases more. The reason for these high figures, as we now know, was the “investment” pitch, the purchase of multiple weeks and apartments with the promise of a rental income and then a sale of the weeks for a sizable profit.
These never materialised, a fact we can see in the court cases in Tenerife and the subsequent liquidation of Silverpoint. We also know that it did not end with the first purchase, after the two to three year period when the weeks were eventually to be sold, the unsuspecting “investors” were then told the weeks and apartments they purchased were not popular so were not selling.
Never mind, Silverpoint would take them off your hands and sell you better weeks and apartments, and so it went on.
But how were these huge purchases financed, from many of the statements from these victims, they told the sales staff it was not affordable, but that was not a problem according to the salesman. He and his manager can arrange finance, in this case through Barclays Partner Finance.
It was a simple process and the loan application would be granted without any problems, and so it was. By the end of the presentation, the “victim” had purchased the timeshares and signed the loan application. By the time they returned home, BPF had already sent the letter congratulating them on their purchase and for using BPF!
So what is the problem I hear some of you ask?
The problem is very simple, the loans were granted without all the usual checks that one would expect for a loan ranging from £30k upwards.
This is not unique to Silverpoint, other timeshare sales companies used the same technique to “broker” loans for the purchase, the “guaranteed” acceptance for the loan. All were accepted by the various finance companies they used, without question.
The three main finance institutions involved with timeshare finance are Barclays Partner Finance, Hitachi and Shawbrook Bank. Only Shawbrook Bank has acknowledged they did not do their “due diligence” when authorising these loans. They set aside around £9 million to cover any defaults in repayments for these loans and the then CEO was forced to resign. See the link below on their admission.
So what do we mean by “Due Diligence”?
Very simply put, it is the lender making sure that their money is secure and will be repaid.
How many of you have gone to your bank or a finance company to ask for a loan for a sizable purchase, it may be a new car, an extension to your home, anything where a large loan is required. From personal experience, the loan was never as straightforward as it has been with purchasing a timeshare.
Apart from the simple credit checks, i.e. any CCJs or defaults, proof of income is required, usually, at least the last 3 months pay statements, for yourself and the wife if you are married. Then there is the all-important Income v Expenditure statement, in this, you will show your monthly outgoings, this is everything, from household bills, right down to what you may spend at work for lunches and coffee per month.
From this and the proof of income they can see if the loan repayments are actually affordable, that you have the “spare” income to cover the repayments without leaving you “short”. In other words “responsible lending”.
Shawbrook admitted they had not done this vital part of the application, they and the other finance companies relied on the information provided by the “timeshare sales staff”, who had a vested interest in making sure the loan was approved.
This is now where we have a problem.
It has always been the way in most sales and especially timeshare, that they are commission-based, in other words, no sale no pay. Some timeshare sales did pay a very meagre “basic” but in many instances, these were based using the old “On Target Earnings”, you don’t make your target you don’t get paid.
This means that the pressure to get you to purchase is going to be even stronger, no matter how you may try to explain you cannot afford the price, the loan option is always going to put more pressure on you to sign.
We must also not forget that the salesman also receives a commission from the finance company, so it is a double-dipper for them. Somehow I see a very “unfair relationship” here, the salesman wants the sale and the lender wants the business. After all, the total repayment is around double the original purchase price, these loans are not cheap.
For the finance companies to rely purely on the information supplied by people with a vested interest in making the sale with a loan, is in our book totally irresponsible. At least Shawbrook admitted as such.
So far in all the cases that Inside Timeshare has seen on this subject, not one client has ever had to show any written proof of income or have had to provide an “income v expenditure” report. At no point has any of this information been provided by the lenders, even though upon request they must produce it, they have not even been able to produce any of this information on the loan application provided by the timeshare sales.
This would suggest that there is a very serious problem here, it also becomes more serious when we look at the loans and the timeshares they were used to purchase. The vast majority were made in Spain, which with their very strict and consumer-friendly timeshare laws, these loans were used to purchase a product that has been deemed illegal according to the law.
For these institutions to be a party to the underhand sales techniques used in timeshare makes them in our opinion worse than the timeshare companies. We have to ask the question, were the finance institutions duped into these loan agreements by timeshare or was it just greed on their part?
Somehow I think your answers will be the same as mine, GREED!
If you purchased a timeshare in Spain after January 1999, then your contract may just be illegal, if you would like to know for certain and the purchase was also made using a finance agreement, then please use our contact page and Inside Timeshare will get back to you.
