Timeshare help

[johnhenry]

Can anyone help me?

 

In 2004 my wife and I went on a timeshare holiday to a hotel called Calla Pi in Majorca for our holiday, while we were there we talked to a woman named Monique and her manager named Peter who talked us into trading in our Club La Costa points “ which we still own by the way as they have never changed over the ownership, even though I have repeatedly asked them to do so”, then they convinced us to buy two more weeks with the Altres Vacations group telling us that if we did not want to use it we could rent it out through them and receive over 1800€ a year in rental income which would be paid to us every 3 years, so we could look at it as a investment instead of a timeshare then if we wanted to us it for holidays then we just used it for holidays. They also said that if we wanted to sell it after a while then they would buy it back off us, which sounded very good. They then showed us that if we deducted our first three years rental off the initial asking price it would bring the cost of the weeks down, but we could not sell it in the first three years as it was on what they called the rental program. We paid a deposit while we were on the holiday then we had month to pay the balance, which we had to remortgage our house to pay them because there finance company ”who they said would finance anybody” would not lend us the money. Anyway we paid the balance 3 months later and waited three years for our next lot of rental income, now when 2007 came and went and we did not receive anymore money I called the company and asked when we were going to receive it, they then told me that I had missed the cut off date and that I would not be getting money that year and that I had to wait until next year, even though no one told me that we had to write them a letter informing them that I wanted to go back on the rental program, the following year we wrote them a letter stating that we wanted to rent out our weeks but nothing no phone call letter or email to say that we would get the money “which it did not”, so last year my wife and I went back to Cala Pi with one of our weeks to try and sort out the problem, we found that Monique and Peter did not work there anymore and the company Altres Vacations were no longer owned the resort and it was a new company Hotel Group , we were then told by a sales person that if we want to get the rental income we have to pay again to upgrade to the new weeks as we had the wrong ones, which we did not do, also they would not buy them back off us either. So as you can guess we left the resort very unhappy we contacted the timeshare consumers association when we returned and they said we could not do a lot as the company has gone.It´s now 2010 and I don´t know what to do, we have two weeks that we can only use in the off season and any money that we were owed would have come from the old company, the new company has said we have to carry on with the fees as we can not sell back... Does anybody know what we can do to get our money back, we have tried reselling, through a company in Wales, but after we paid them 450, we have never heard anything about a buyer.

Any help would be welcome.

 

Thank you

J. H

[funnyoldworld]

Johnhenry,

 

I am very sorry to hear of your experiences but you appear to be jumping from one frying-pan into a fire and then back into a frying-pan. Time-share is riddled with fraudsters! They take the view that if you have been sucked in once, you are fair game to be sucked in a second, third, fourth and fifth time!

 

Put the name of the firms that you have dealt with into google and you will find hundreds of stories like your own. There is a long thread on Club La Costa on this site and if you check Ebay you will find that many people are just trying to give away CLC points or sell for a fraction of the cost price. I believe that there is a not-for-profit protest group for CLC people and google will lead you to it.

 

Altres Vacances is on the Timeshare Blacklist of The Timeshare Council. Need I say more?

 

Loads and loads of concerns (not just in Wales) will promise to sell time-shares for a fee to existing buyers, but strangely, once the initial fee is paid, you never hear from the firm again.

 

I think that you realize that you are in a poor position and can really only put this down to experience. Your chances of getting your money back are remote and the best that that you can hope for is to get out of paying the annual fees, or continue using the things for (albeit expensive) holidays.

 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news (although I think you expected this) and I sincerely hope that some other passing CAGer has any sort of better ideas.

[Storminorman]

JohnHenry

 

You are probably in the same position as many hundreds if not thousands of timeshare owners that purchased a timeshare as an investment, (a selling pitch by the sales staff), that later turned out to be a drain of never ending fee after fee, then you was promised a better product, with even higher returns, of course when joining you had to part with more money. A few years later, the financial returns dried up and the company had left.

It appears that many marketing companies in timeshare do not stay around for long, and so sometimes even if something is in black and white does not mean that it will happen.

 

There is some light at the end of the tunnel for some, as now there are a few (some might call them ambulance chasers) compensation and timeshare claims companies, some good advice can be sort from the Timeshare Consumers Association, Claims Directive, TUG timeshare advice, TATOC, and the RDO (OTE) to name but a few, all can be found by a Google search.

 

But NEVER EVER pay any money Up front to sell, trade or exchange a timeshare, as the previous poster advised, resell values are at an all time low, so just like an old car, if you can scrap it and walk away, with nothing more to pay, do so.

[posh975]

Hi

I have also been approached by a company called UFC who say they are a sourcing company who have a buyer lined up.They said it would cost around 1200 euro to transfer & exchange paperwork etc which would then be reimbursed after the buyer had received the deeds.When she rings back Im goin to tell her to sling her hook.What makes it worse is that the timeshare belonged to my mum who passed away in mid january,the woman knows this & is still tryin it on! We were told by someone that as long as mum didnt leave it in will to us or sign it over to us we could just walk away.I hope this is the case.Good luck & I hope everything turns out ok for you.

[Storminorman]

Hi posh975,

 

Do not pay ANY money upfront to sell your timeshare, your timeshare is probably worth less than a few hundred pounds, as it was your mother that signed and owned the timeshare, you must first write a registered letter to the Timeshare Developer stating that your mother has died, including a copy of the death certicate and that you are now handing the timeshare property back. If there is any outstanding maintenace fees, they can request this from your mothers estate, however this is very unlikely and should honour your request.

[johnhenry]

Thank you for all your replies,

 

I have been investigating what I can do for some time now and unfortunately I cannot do anything about the money I have paid to resale companies I will just have to say good bye to that, however, After speaking to a solicitor I do have a case to take the timeshare company I purchased my weeks from to court for timeshare miss-selling, I am now in the process of starting a court action against the company, I will keep everyone informed on how that goes.

 

John Henry

[Storminorman]

Johnhenry,

 

Are you using an Englsih solicitor.

[johnhenry]

Yes i am using an English solicitor, but she has told me that the misrepresentation claim must be made in Spain, so they are now sending copies of my paperwork to be translated and then sent to a solicitor in Spain, they will then work together to process my court case, seems very slow, but after waiting some years to sort this out, another few months wont hurt.

[Storminorman]

Johnhenry,

 

Can I ask you are you making a claim against Club La Costa ?

[johnhenry]

No and i still have the club la Costa points. This is a claim against the resort, Cala Pi Club Mallorca, who talked me into buying more weeks with them telling me they would take the points from me but then told me they would not be able to. I cant remember the name of the new company but I have been informed they are the same company that i purchased from and have just changed names, I will add more information once I have been informed that I have a valid case and that proceedings will begin.

[Storminorman]

How much are you paying to have your papers translated, sounds expensive and why could they not do it in the UK.

[johnhenry]

Yes to do it through the company in Spain is not cheep, with translating of papers, notaries and so on, however i went to my solicitor in the UK to do it and although She is still helping the documents for my case, she advised me to go with the Spanish company because they had been dealing with these timeshare cases and they know Spanish law, which English solicitors do not, Plus the company in Gran Canaria that i am doing it through have been wining court cases of this nature.

Edited June 11, 2010 by johnhenry

[Storminorman]

Who are the company please.

[johnhenry]

Hi Storminorman

 

The company i am using is called Claims Directive, they can be found at Claims Directive - timeshare advice and compensation claims.

 

Just to let everybody know, i have been out to see them and everything went great, they explained how it works and what type of figure i could expect to receive, i am now just waiting for my court date for my case to proceed into the courts

 

I will keep you all informed on how it goes.

[Storminorman]

JohnHenry

 

Did you know this can take up to 2 years and even then you have no gurantee through Claims Directive that you will win ?

[Storminorman]

JohnHenry

 

Did you know this can take up to 2 years and even then you have no gurantee through Claims Directive that you will win ?

 

 

Any News Norman ?

[nksunny]

Hey Storminorman! Any news on the court case?

[reallymadwoman]

Storminorman hasn't logged on to the forum since 2010.

[nksunny]

Does anyone know how to get release from CLC contract? I know the steps wont be easy, but anything is better than doing nothing!

[ploddertom]

Why don't you start a thread of your own off.

[Gin B]

Hi JohnHenry

 

Did you ever resolve your issues with Altres Vacances and Cala Pi? I have had a similar experience, again purchased in 2004. I did receive the rental monies for the first 3 years then it stopped. I also found it difficult to book holidays at the home resort. It certainly hasn't lived up to its promises in terms of ease of use and maintenance fees are now via a third party, OnaGrup which do the administration but don't seem to be able to offer much guidance. I am not interested in getting any funds back on this now, just want to stop the maintenance.

[ploddertom]

Hi JohnHenry

 

Did you ever resolve your issues with Altres Vacances and Cala Pi? I have had a similar experience, again purchased in 2004. I did receive the rental monies for the first 3 years then it stopped. I also found it difficult to book holidays at the home resort. It certainly hasn't lived up to its promises in terms of ease of use and maintenance fees are now via a third party, OnaGrup which do the administration but don't seem to be able to offer much guidance. I am not interested in getting any funds back on this now, just want to stop the maintenance.

 

You need to start your own thread off about this as this was started some 5 years ago and the person you are looking for was last active in August 2010.

New thread use this link http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=61 in the meantime I will close this thread.