Timeshare agreements can seem binding and contractually daunting, but understanding your rights in full could lead to you being able to exit the contract.
If you have recently purchased a timeshare and want to cancel the contract, then you have 14 days (known as the “Withdrawal Period”) in which to do so. If the timeshare is a Long Term Holiday product, as described under the provisions of The Timeshare Regulations 2010 in the UK, then you can terminate the contract upon written notice to the timeshare resort, without explanation.
EU Countries such as Spain, have now implemented the timeshare Directive 2008/122/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 January 2009 on the protection of consumers in respect of certain aspects of timeshare, long-term holiday product, resale, and exchange agreements (the “Directive”) ( Spanish supreme court ruling on timeshare).
The Directive simplified and extended measures for the protection of you, the consumer. They simplify and address any shortcomings within the current timeshare laws, as the new Directive applies to the sale, marketing and content of timeshare contracts. The Directive extends measures to the sale of long-term holiday products, the resale of timeshares, and, timeshare exchange contracts; the marketing and sale of which have been a nightmare for many people
If you have not familiarised yourself with the legislation, then you should do. The documentation is clear and easy to read and in particular provides direction about the documentation that should have been provided to you when you were sold your timeshare or long-term holiday product. The good news is that if the resort did not provide you with the documentation, then the withdrawal period, which is normally 14 days, is not valid and does not begin until you have received it.
In the UK, the Directive was enshrined into law by the Timeshare, Holiday Products, Resale and Exchange Contracts Regulations 2010 (2010 No. 2960) (hereinafter referred to as the “Regulations”). In Spain, it was done by amending Law 42/1998 of the Spanish Civil Code.
So how does the legislation here affect you? Well, hopefully, we can explain it for you, here below.
For contracts or agreements entered into before 23rd February 2011:
You are legally able to cancel a timeshare agreement or holiday club agreement within 14 days of the date that you signed the contract under the provisions of the withdrawal period under the new Regulations. If you bought the timeshare or holiday club product which was financed by a linked loan or other financial agreement, you will need to write to the financial institution who provided the loan and tell them that you want to terminate the agreement. You should put this in writing and send the notice of cancellation to the resort and the bank simultaneously. You should do this by recording delivery so that you have proof of delivery. Email communication can also be proof of delivery, but this may be subject to argument. We would recommend that you do it in writing by both post and email to ensure your intentions are on record. Make sure you have some proof of delivery, both by mail and electronically.
You must send this within the 14-day withdrawal period. Ensure that you leave enough time and do not leave it until the eleventh hour or too near to the 14-day deadline, as the clock starts ticking the day you sign the agreement to buy your timeshare.
You are not compelled to give a reason as to why you want to terminate the timeshare agreement or holiday club agreement, you simply need to state the agreement number, the date that you signed it, and that you desire to cancel. Make sure the dates are accurate and leave no doubt as to your intention to terminate your agreement.
If the resort has followed protocol it is good practice to include a ‘model cancellation’ letter which you can copy and submit to the resort. The good thing about using such a letter is the resort cannot argue that your intention to terminate has not been conveyed to them correctly.
It is important to know that if you have not been given the subscribed cancellation notice within the documents at the point of sale then, crucially, the 14-day withdrawal period does not begin until you receive them. If you are not in receipt of the notice of withdrawal, then check all your documentation to ensure that it was not included in the package with the sales information they gave you at the point of sale.
Under the Timeshare Regulations 2010 Part 6 25 (5) it is forbidden for a resort or person to:
accept any consideration from the consumer before:
(a) the sale of those rights takes place, or
(b) the agreement is otherwise terminated
(6) For this regulation “consideration” includes any of the following;
(a) payments,
(b) guarantees,
(c) reservations of money on account,
(d) acknowledgments of debt.
(7) A person who contravenes paragraph (3) or (5) commits an offence.
Therefore, if you have paid any money within the 14-day withdrawal period, you are entitled to demand a full refund of your money without deduction for administrations or any other fees that the seller may seek to impose upon you as a consequence of your request to withdraw within the 14-day withdrawal period.
Please take the time to read this page in full and understand the relevant parts that apply specifically to yourself, as some situations may arise that can be a little more complex than others. If you do not understand or you feel confused, and you seek further clarity in respect of your consumer your rights, please call Mercantile Claims, we have a dedicated team of timeshare experts who will help you.
As above, you also have further protection under the Regulations. They are as follows: –
When selling, traders must comply with the Consumer Agreements (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 when selling goods and services away from their business premises. This may be on your doorstep, in your home or, at your place of work. These are defined as ‘off-premises’ contracts.
An off-premises contract is a contract between you and a trader when any of the following occur:
All of the aforementioned require the trader to provide a consumer with a ‘withdrawal period’ of 14 days. It is a criminal offence if the trader fails to inform a consumer of their rights to a cooling off period and, depending upon when or if the notice was given at all, it can extend the cooling off period up to 12 months from the date of purchase.
An ‘on-premises’ contract is a contract between you and a trader that is neither a ‘distance’ contract nor an ‘off-premises’ contract. In most cases this means a contract that is made on the business premises of the trader; this includes the trader’s permanent place of business as well as temporary sites where they normally operate.
If you enter into a contract on-premises-at a traders place of business, then you have no right to a cooling off period.
The Resort Development Organisation is the higher governance within the timeshare industry and was the timeshare industry’s response to the threat of statutory regulation of the timeshare industry.
The RDO is linked to an entirely funded by timeshare resorts. Therefore, there is little independence. The RDO has no interest in policing or penalising timeshare resorts because their entire existence is dependent upon the resorts which fund them.
The RDO’s mandate is to ensure fairness and hold resorts accountable to their ‘code of ethics’. However, there is no evidence of the RDO ever having done this in all of their time in existence.
Here below is part of their mission statement.
Timeshare resorts and sellers should;
Timeshare is a rudderless ship with no direction, as many individuals have experienced it.
Timeshare is now sold across the world, so wherever you travel you are likely to encounter timeshare selling. However, the laws relating to timeshare selling will differ greatly in each country and you should proceed with caution when considering buying a timeshare offshore and outside of the EU, because your consumer rights may not be protected.
The USA has a buoyant timeshare market, as, unlike in Europe, US timeshares are still being sold and the attitude towards timeshare selling in the US is very different to Europe. The main difference between the two is that the US timeshare market has a strong resale value for timeshare whereas European timeshare sales have stalled over the past 10 years thus producing a stagnation in the European resale market.
We mention the US in particular as we have many UK-based customers whom we have successfully terminated US-based timeshares for.
As a UK citizen, you have consumer rights under UK and EU legislation. The main Regulations and UK statutory acts under which you are covered are as follows: –
To find how those rights may affect you contact one of Mercantile Claims specialist legal advisors who can assist you.
Our team of experienced timeshare advisors will assess your timeshare agreement and provide you with an expert as to how you will be able to terminate your timeshare without any ongoing financial risk to yourself.
Cancellation or termination of your agreement is possible outside of the withdrawal period. However, the timeshare industry often uses scaremonger techniques to dissuade consumers from exercising their rights.
Resorts and timeshare sales representatives will tell you that once you have signed a timeshare agreement you are locked into it and any attempt to protect your rights will be met with legal action.
It is unlikely that the resort will take legal action against a timeshare owner for terminating their timeshare, as the agreements are unlikely to stand up to scrutiny before the courts. Traditional timeshare agreements are more robust than the latter incarnations of timeshare i.e points, floating weeks, and fractional, all of which are unproven variations upon the traditional timeshare theme and are often adopted by timeshare resorts to maintain the resort by way of charging owners annual maintenance fees.
Mercantile Claims have successfully terminated many timeshares agreements and argued many of the below on behalf of their customers.
The reason why you should argue for termination of your timeshare: –
If you think that you were mis-sold your timeshare or have experienced one or several of the above situations where you feel you were pressured or forced to make a timeshare purchase. Then why not speak to one of our friendly specialist termination experts here at Mercantile Claims?
Communicating directly with your timeshare resource whilst the termination process is in progress is often problematic. The reason for you not communicating with the timeshare resort is simply because the resort will often try to either talk you out of terminating or, in many cases, see this as an opportunity to sell you other products and services.
There is nothing out of the ordinary in us asking you not to communicate with your resort directly. When you entrust work to a legal representative you are not expected to also be communicating with the persons or organisations that you have instructed your legal representative to deal with. Indeed, if you wanted to deal with the resort directly, it begs the question as to why would you instruct and pay a third party to do what you could do yourself.
Timeshare resorts often try to ignore any contact from third parties, because they want to continue to deal with owners directly, for that reason, it is just like when you were mis-sold your timeshare; they feel that they can manipulate your thinking and, by communicating with you directly, they are taking the least line of resistance. You will appreciate that the timeshare resorts will seize upon this opportunity to turn the consumer against us and influence their thinking as to the good work we are carrying out on the consumer’s behalf.
We require a detailed summary of the sales procedure and how the sale was made, in particular, what was promised at the point of sale. It would also be prudent to list down anything that was promised but did not materialise. For example, if you were told that you could hand back the timeshare if it was no longer required, or if you were told that you would receive certain benefits that you have never received. Were you sold a timeshare apartment that was different from the one you actually were given upon purchase?
We appreciate that it may have been some time since you actually purchased your timeshare. However, the more detail you can provide stronger our case will be, should the timeshare resort challenge the termination.
There are two ways in which you are able to make a claim in order to recover money for the mis-selling, misrepresentation, or breach of agreement against your timeshare resort: –
Both of the above cover purchases made both in the UK and overseas if you have suffered a loss due to misrepresentation or a breach of contract.
Chargeback claims under the Visa and Mastercard schemes are limited to 120 days from the date of purchase in which to make a chargeback claim to your bank. Some claims can be extended up to 540 days. Please remember that the chargeback scheme is purely at the discretion of the banks and they can, and, often do, refuse to take any action in respect of chargeback claims.
Section 75 claims are subject to the statutory provisions laid down in The Consumer Credit Act 1974 and, whilst there is guidance within the Consumer Credit Act, the credit card providers and financial institutions often reject claims because they consider that a claim lacks merit or does not have the necessary elements contained within the Act. The limitation period for making a Section 75 claim is 6 years from the date of the transaction(s).
Loan Agreements up to £30,000.00 are also covered under Section 75. However, the limitation period operates slightly differently. The period of limitation is still 6 years, but the limitation period does not begin to run until the last payment under the loan agreement has been paid. Therefore, if you take out a five-year loan agreement, you have six years after that payment has been made to bring a claim.
New Legislation April 2019
On 01 April 2019, all Section 75 will come under the authority of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Therefore, anyone offering this service must be regulated by the FCA.
Mercantile Claims are an authorised and regulated claims company and will be compliant with the forthcoming legislation.
Failed Claims
People can make claims under the Chargeback and Section 75 schemes but often have the claims rejected as explained above. Mercantile Claims are experts in conducting these claims and we are able to reassess your claim and give you a view on your prospects of success if we are able to resubmit your claim.
Contact us now to discuss your claim – Unlike many Timeshare Solicitors.
Check Using Our Claim Calculator to check if you qualify for a Timeshare Release
Our timeshare claim calculator is a quick and easy way to find out how much you could receive in compensation from your mis-sold timeshare.
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