For eleven clients of Canarian Legal Alliance Christmas shopping has never been more fun as they have just recently received their favorable sentences from the Spanish courts.
Our clients entrusted us to represent them in order to declare their contracts null and void and to claim back what they originally paid. They have now been awarded over 350,000€ from the Courts of First Instance against resorts such as Airtours, Anfi and Diamond Resorts, all in the space of 10 days!
Their contracts have not only been proven to be illegal for not fulfilling the terms of Spanish Timeshare Law, but they have also been awarded by the courts to receive back double their deposits paid for infringing the article on the taking of any payment within the stipulated and statutory reflection period.
The High Courts are continuously confirming this particular sanction, even when it corrects rulings from the Courts of First Instance. The law does not state any timeframe to apply such a sanction, neither do the magistrates, as long as there is some kind of direct or even indirect proof for the date of such payments.
This part of the timeshare law was designed to protect consumers from huge payments when they sign the contract, often being placed under high-pressure tactics to sign.
The law wants to ensure that clients have enough time to reflect on the decision to sign which means a large financial commitment on their part along with the consequences of many years of financial commitment in the form of annual maintenance fees.
When a payment is made during the reflection or cooling-off period the client can still cancel their membership as it is deemed unlawful, even if they are told that they will lose any deposit paid. This tactic by the sales teams was designed to ensure that clients did not cancel as it puts undue pressure on the client by inferring that they will lose in many cases several thousand euros.
This was stated in the first-ever ruling by the Supreme Court in favor of one of our clients regarding the matter of the taking of deposits. This is now widely accepted by all courts and judges.
For more information on our recent sentences don’t hesitate to contact us either by telephone or through our contact page on the website.