Before Christmas, we gave one of our clients the greatest gift of all – a win. But the win also came with a huge payout of €16,000. This is one of the latest victories from our team.
The UK couple, in their 70s, told us that a “big weight has been lifted” after we worked on their behalf to help them cut ties from their Club la Costa timeshare trap. Their contract was in fact found not to be legally compliant, as many others also are.
At ECC, we work closely with M1 Legal, a specialist firm of international lawyers based in Málaga, Spain. M1 are currently processing over 1,500 timeshare cases of which 964 lawsuits have already been submitted to the court at a value of over £21million and to date, they have achieved 191 favourable judgements totalling £3.1million.
You can view their victories at https://m1legal.com/our-victories.
The Bradshaw’s became fractional owners of an apartment in Sierra Marina Resort owned by Club La Costa World in 2012. The couple paid more than £8,000 for their fractional ownership. They had also previously paid £19,000 for other Club La Costa World related schemes. As if this wasn´t enough, the couple were also forced to pay more than £5,000 in annual maintenance fees. It is likely that the situation the Bradshaw’s found themselves in sounds very familiar to the one you or someone you know may be locked into.
The unfair timeshare sales tactics make owning a timeshare seem like the best idea in the World. It’s true that the sales reps will put pressure onto you in an attempt to convince you to purchase before you have time to thoroughly consider your options.
“We saw it as an investment, to enjoy quality holidays – and we were advised that we would have the option to sell our fractional ownership back to Club La Costa World after 19 years but this was not the case,” Mr. Bradshaw informed us.
“When we found out what they had told us was not true, we felt trapped having discovered the fractional ownership was unsalable there being no resale market,” added Mrs. Bradshaw.
In August 2016, the couple decided that it was the right time to take action. After contacting us at ECC, they met with one of our knowledgeable consultants in Berkshire to find out how exactly we could help them. Upon thorough discussion, we initiated the process of taking legal action against Paradise Trading SL, a company belonging to Club La Costa World.
“We followed the process with ECC and it was all straight forward – they were very thorough in requesting all of the paperwork for our case,” said Mr. Bradshaw. The case was passed to M1 Legal in 2017 and the legal team kept the Bradshaw’s updated on the progress they made through the Spanish courts.
Content with the results they were seeing the couple stated they urged others in their same predicament to give serious consideration to taking their same course of action. “Go ahead,” said Mr. Bradshaw, “but be patient and don’t be put off by the bad press you see online. Often enough the bad press is published by the very people who support the timeshare industry.”
Previously, having no success in their attempt to sell their fractional timeshare ownership the problems continued to grow. The maintenance fees continued to grow year after year. With paying heaps of money towards their timeshare they should have been allowed to enjoy it in peace. But every time they booked a holiday with Club La Costa there would be yet another fee thrown at them for the reservation.
Just to add to the hassle, there seemed to always be a problem regarding the actual reservation. Such as dates, location and property size, meaning the couple always had to compromise instead of receiving the high level holiday they had paid more than enough to be deserving of.
Even when they finally managed to get some organization out of Club La Costa and headed on holiday; moments after walking through the door to their accommodation they would have sales reps knocking, trying to intimidate them into further purchases.
M1 Legal carefully analysed the contract that was given to the Bradshaw’s. It was discovered that the contract Club La Costa had provided to the Bradshaw’s did not comply with Spanish law. The contract failed to specify an end date and lacked the land registry information that is legally required.
In December 2019 they received their payout of €16,076.75. “We received €16,076 just in time for Christmas,” said the Bradshaw’s. “This was like a big cloud over us and now that it has been lifted we don’t need to worry about family being lumbered with unwanted timeshare bills. We sincerely thank ECC and M1 Legal teams for their efforts.”
The couple are already putting their new funds to good use; “We will never buy timeshare again. From now on we make our own holiday arrangements and for this year have booked a cruise to Russia.”
It always puts a smile on the ECC and M1 Legal team’s faces to know that we have helped another innocent consumer who deserved so much better. We are extremely pleased that the couple are so delighted with the outcome of their case.
If you have been backed into a corner by your timeshare resort and feel that you are being left with no means of escape, please do not hesitate to contact one of our advisers to find out what we can do to help.
Call us on 0800 6101 512 or 0203 6704 616 today.
Alternatively, submit your claim to our website and we will get back to you.
