At least 400 owners are demanding their money back from Anfi del Mar
A Tsunami of lawsuits
Claims presented against Anfi del Mar located in the Canary Islands, are now around 11.600.000 €. More than 400 timeshare owners have now got ongoing claims against Anfi Resorts built by the Norwegian entrepreneur, Bjørn Lyng.
As well as Anfi del Mar other timeshare operators are being claimed against
– I can´t bear to think about it anymore. It has been given so much fuzz, that it’s almost too much for me now, says Tove Grimsbo.
It has been one year since she and another runsatisfied timeshare owner, won two ground-breaking victories at the Supreme Court in Spain. Now more and more clients are looking to claim against Anfi, turning to the law firm known as Canarian Legal Alliance (CLA), associated with Miguel Rodriguez Ceballos, the lawyer who led the case of Mrs Grimsbo.
– At the moment we have 257 active cases against Anfi del Mar, which have been presented at court and are awaiting a result. The total amount of these claims against Anfi is approximately 6.8 Million €, states the legal adviser Anja Petersen from CLA to Kapitalen.
– Furthermore we have 135 cases against Anfi del Mar, which are still in preparation with our lawyers, waiting to be presented at court. These are cases that are missing key documents or a signature etc. says Petersen.
If you join alll the cases together, both those which have already been presented as well as those which are in preparation, it adds up to approximately 400 cases where timeshare owners are looking to reclaim their monies back from Anfi. As far as Kapital is aware of, the the total amount of these 400 clients claims surpasses 12 million € or around 110 million Norwegian Kroner.
Tove Grimsbo won her case at the Supreme Court, where her contracts were her Anfi contracts were declared null and void. These contracts were declared null on the basis that they were sold after 1999 with unlimited duration. According to a law that which came into force in 1999, it is only legal to sell timeshare contracts with duration of 3 to 50 years. The other Supreme Court ruling, against another timeshare giant, was about the selling of the so called floating weeks, a right to week without a specific date. This sentence ruled that the sales of floating weeks, are illegal.
– The Supreme Court sentences have now created a precedent for lawsuits against the whole timeshare industry. The outcomes of these sentences were then later confirmed by other court decisions. The lower courts of Spain must now follow the precedent set by the Supreme Court in similar cases.
– It is not only Anfi del Mar who is receiving claims. The law firm CLA have an additional 530 cases against other timeshare giants. What this means is that the law firm CLA has almost 1000 alone.
Floating weeks
The holiday resort Anfi del Mar was built by the now deceased Norwegian Bjørn Lyng. The resort is now shared 50/50 by the heirs of Bjørn Lyng, and their Spanish partner known as Grupo Santana Cazorla, managed by the brothers Manuel & Santiago Santana Cazorla.
In earlier articles Kapital has written about the deep conflict between the Norwegian and the Spanish owners, stating that the heirs of Lyng are trying to sell their part. Since the beginning of the 1900s 40.000-50.000 units of the resort have been sold, 8000-10.000 of which have been sold to primarily Norwegians, attracted by the both the well-known name and reputation of Bjørn Lyng. Even though timeshare resorts have a bad reputation, Anfi del Mar has a very big fan base, especially from those who still own Anfi and do not won’t rid of it.
One of the first problem that Anfi floating week’s owners are experiencing is that of availability. Whilst the people who have bought fixed weeks can enjoy the same time and apartment every year, those who are part of the floating system limited to whatever availability Anfi has. This is how the floating system works, whilst you are entitled to a week in Anfi, you may very well be placed in an unspecified apartment throughout the whole hotel at an unspecified time. The floating system has become so overbooked that people are having to book their holiday a whole year in advance.
In 2011 Anfi introduced a new booking system which allowed those who purchased floating weeks directly from Anfi, for around 200,000 kroner, to be able to get their weeks during the winter period. Those who had bought a cheap floating week from the resale market, will have to accept the less popular weeks. This has resulted in the value of the weeks going dramatically down. Since Anfi does not have a buy back policy, the floating weeks now seem to be almost worthless. This has created a huge dissatisfaction throughout the people that were promised the earth by the convincing sales people of Anfi. Nevertheless the recent Supreme Court rulings have created new hope for timeshare owners. I have received calls enquiring about my case, it is more than hundreds who have called or text me, says Tove Grimsbo. It is not only the selling of floating weeks and life time contracts that the Spanish Supreme court has ruled on. According to Anja Petersen, there are a further two Supreme Court rulings acquired by the law firm CLA which state that any deposit taken in the first three months of the contract being singed is illegal. Regardless whether the payment is made directly to the resort or through a third party. Even though all of these conditions have been regulated by timeshare sale laws introduced in 1998, they have been interpreted many different ways by courts throughout Spain.
Missing the money
The effect of these Supreme Court rulings has been to speed up the processes in the lower courts.
– We were running a case for a timeshare client in November last year. The trial was finished in the afternoon, and the next morning at around 9:30 the court had made a decision, the judge ruled in our favour. It is both fantastic and encouraging to see that the law actually works. It has taken us six years, it hasn’t been easy as we are dealing with some extremely powerful people, says Petersen. Mrs Petersen is of the opinion that once Mrs Grimsbo gets her money back this will create an avalanche of new clients who will sign up with Canarian Legal Alliance. Nevertheless Anfi has so far tried everything to delay pay-outs to various clients by implementing certain legal tactics.
– Mrs Grimsbo has now become very famous in the timeshare industry. Everyone now has knowledge about her, not only in the Scandinavian countries but also in the United Kingdom and Germany. Many people are asking her if she has received her money. We know that once Mrs Grimsbo receives her money this will make other clients come forward. Mrs Petersen believes that many people are scared through the courts against Anfi, as they are yet to believe anyone has gotten their money back. Of course Anfi don’t want to admit that they have indeed made payments to clients who were victorious in their claim against them, nonetheless they have says Petersen. According to Mrs Petersen Canarian Legal Alliance won 32 cases against Anfi on behalf of the clients last year alone. The total amount of these claims was 930,000€ where already more than 600,000€ have been paid out. In the case of Mrs Grimsbo, Anfi has already transferred the money to the court, but so far they have not paid Mrs Grimsbo. Mrs Petersen claims that Anfi has received a deadline till the beginning of March, to come up with new reasons for why the money cannot be released. At first Anfi claimed there was no Supreme Court ruling, stating that it was a mistake, which they would of course appeal, something they simply cannot do. The only option for Anfi is to take this case to the Human Rights court in Haag, where timeshare cases definitely do not belong. Because of this cases sensitivity and the consequences which it will bring with it, everything takes a long time, says Mrs Petersen.
While Canarian Legal Alliance calculates each individual client claim amount, others speculate a more offensive approach against the timeshare giants. There is an opinion that the clients who had made a payment to Anfi in the first three months of their contracts can claim double the amount back, and in addition have refunded their annual maintenance costs. This interpretation has however yet to be tested in court.