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: Beverly Hills Club Vacation Package.
Resolution Period: 4 Years (2013)
Amount Awarded: £10,457
Client Story:
In 2008 the clients accepted a free week stay at the complex Beverly Hills Club, on the condition that they had to attend what was described to them as an hour-long presentation with a representative. When the clients arrived at the complex they were taken to a room where a further 10 to 15 presentations were taking place. When the representative started talking they realised he was trying to sell them timeshare, the clients immediately refused. However many hours the representative explained that what he was selling was a pack of seven apartments for the price of £25,000, which in turn would be sold within two years for a healthy profit if they don´t want to use it. So they accepted.
When the clients returned the following year, they were told that due to the current economic situation across Europe their apartments could not be sold. The representative then told them that they would change their one bed apartments to two bed apartments for a small annual fee. They then explained to the clients that these apartments would be converted into points which the clients could use for any resorts within RCI.
The clients feel like they have been cheated as not only have they not received anything for their seven apartments, but they were now paying both Silverpoint and RCI annual maintenance fees.
Action Taken by CLA:
After becoming so infuriated with Silverpoint, the clients approached Canarian Legal Alliance with goal of recuperating some of the money, which they felt they had been cheated of.
In 2013 the client’s case was presented at court, with the First Instance judge agreeing with Canarian Legal Alliance and ruling in favour of the clients within the same year, only for it to be appealed to the High Court by Silverpoint. In 2014 the High Court rejected the lower courts sentence, stating that what the clients had purchased was an investment and therefore doesn´t fall under the Spanish Timeshare Law 42/98.
In disagreement with the resolution an appeal was presented to the highest-ranking court in Spain. In 2016 the Supreme Court agreed to study the case pronouncing itself in the same year. It was in January 2017 when Canarian Legal Alliance received their sentence declaring the clients Silverpoint contract null and void and ordering the return of £10,000, stating that the clients cannot be seen purely as investors and are therefore protected by the Spanish Timeshare Law of 42/98
Resort Infraction & Sentence Summary
The highest ranking court in Spain considered the clients to be consumers, rejecting the High Courts arguments of seeing them as investors.
As the Supreme Court viewed the owners of the contract as consumers, they applied the Spanish Timeshare Law of 42/98, declaring the Beverly Hills Club contract illegal on the basis of several infringment of the law, for example the duration of the contract, the lack of information, required by law to be included, or the deposit taking- punishing the Company to return it in double