Timeshare Litigation Case Study

Client Nationality: British
Defendant Resort: Resort Properties / Silverpoint
Resolution Location: Madrid; Spain
Judicial Level: Supreme Court
Case Type: Civil
Timeshare Structure: Vacation Package
Resolution Period: 5 Years (2012)
Amount Awarded: £48,934

Client Story:

On the 28th of February 2009, the clients purchased from Resort Properties six apartments for the price of £25,000. The clients were under the impression that this would serve both for holiday purposes as well as an investment. The chief of sales was also brought in to back up the representative. The clients paid a deposit of £1,000 as this is what the representative requested.

When the clients visited again on the 20th of February 2010 they were told by the same representative that none of the apartments had been sold and that their value had decreased. The representative explained to the clients that for their property to recuperate its value they would need to purchase an affiliation to a club called Club Paradiso. Again, a deposit was taken with a further £23,934 being paid later.

Action Taken by CLA:

After several years of being displeased with Resort Properties, the clients decided to contact Canarian Legal Alliance in the hope of recuperating the monies which they felt they had been cheated out of.
Confident of achieving a victorious outcome Canarian Legal Alliance presented the client’s case at court in 2012 with the First Instance court of Tenerife and a year later the judge who studied the case ruled in the clients favour. Resort Properties appealed this decision to the High Court who decided in 2014 to rule in Resort Properties favour and dismissed the lower courts sentence on the basis of not considering the clients consumers, therefore not applying the timeshare law. The only way to challenge this resolution was to present it to the Supreme Court, in which our clients agreed with the lawyers. In 2016 we have been notified that the case has fulfilled the requirements to be studied by the highest ranking court in Spain.
They reviewed all of the evidence and concluded that the clients were in the right, declaring their contract null and void and ordering Resort Properties to return £48,934 plus legal fees and legal interest.
Resort Infraction & Sentence Summary
As in previous sentences, the magistrates ruled that membership of Club Paradiso is indeed timeshare, meaning it is covered by the timeshare law, (42/98), even though there was no concrete apartment number or week attached.
Once again the Supreme Court reiterated the fact that the client was a “Consumer” and not an “Investor”, rejecting the Tenerife High Courts argument that timeshare law did not apply.

This ruling, together with the ones in the past one month has already set precedent and made the lower and high court in Tenerife to change their rulings.