Can you still claim compensation from timeshare companies in administration?

As former timeshare powerhouses close down, they would like you to believe it is not worth claiming compensation from them over illegal contracts. What is the real story?

A decimated business

Timeshare is an outdated, expensive and inflexible way to holiday

The biggest names in the industry over the last few decades have been falling by the wayside, one by one. Anfi, Diamond Resorts Europe, CLC World, Silverpoint and Azure are variously ceasing sales, going into administration, filing for insolvency, bankruptcy and liquidation. Those companies who are left are seeing huge reductions in sales of new memberships.

A significant factor in the downfall of the timeshare holiday business, is the vast amounts of punitive compensation awarded against them for illegal contracts.

Compensation

Many European timeshare companies have been writing illegal contracts for decades in order to maximise profits at their customers' expense. Since 2016, courts in Spain and even elsewhere have been punishing the resorts to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds.

So what happens when the company goes bust, or shuts down their operations? Is it game over for those people who are owed compensation over illegal sales methods?

Not according to European Consumer Claims CEO, Andrew Cooper.

"It depends upon where you own of course," he explains. "If your membership is at a small, private resort and they have no assets, then there is a possibility that the bankruptcy is genuinely because they are out of money. But always take advice before dismissing the idea of claiming against them. They may be holding out on you, while actually having enough assets to pay their creditors (including you).

Wealthy companies

"When we are talking about the really big companies, it is obvious to everyone that they are capable of paying the compensation they owe," states Cooper. " It beggars belief that companies such as Anfi or CLC would dare to plead poverty. It is insulting to the intelligence of their victims.

"Not only have they taken hundreds of millions of pounds over the years via illegal contracts, they also rake in tens of millions a year in fees, and own swathes of luxury real estate.

"These types of companies routinely attempt to disguise their true value, or hide their assets and finances behind tricky corporate structures. ECC, their associated firm of timeshare lawyers M1 Legal, and the official administrators support one another in making sure they don't succeed.

Support for the administrators

Traditionally M1 Legal, does the legal work pushing the claims through the court systems. However the dynamic changes with companies in administration. "M1 still work just as hard, if not harder when the case is given to the administrators," confirms Andrew Cooper. "

"M1 have to first qualify the claimant by conducting a similar legal assessment to that which they would ordinarily do process a claim through the courts. Thereafter they continue to support the administration process by helping to investigate the timeshare companies' finances, unravel relationships between webs of companies, and a host of other support work.

"In the Club La Costa administration for example, ECC spent over £100,000 on legal proceedings to have the original administrators replaced with the creditors' choice, FRP Advisory (world leaders in this area).

"The good news for the client is that administration cases are often resolved more speedily than when they have to go through the courts as M1 no longer have to grind their way through all of the slow, drawn out legal strategies employed by the other side.

The bottom line

"If a timeshare company has sold you a membership by breaking the law, then you should not abandon the idea of claiming compensation from them without getting advice first," says Cooper.

"It costs nothing to book a consultation with one of our consultants. They will cut through the noise and tell you whether or not a claim is worth it. In most cases where the resort portrays themselves as unable to pay what they owe, there is usually enough money hidden away to do so.

"These companies broke the law to profit at their customers' expense. You owe it to yourself and others to make them pay this money back."