The wins are flooding in for M1 Legal as more timeshare victims seek justice
Sympathetic judges?
The judges change regularly in Tenerife’s Arona Court number three, and new justices seem to be increasingly focused on the rights of the consumer.
Recently, a judge ruled that “CLC World (CLC) acted in bad faith by alleging that the vendor agency was on behalf of another company“. This is a common tactic used by timeshare resorts in order to hide behind other companies. But this time it would not be accepted.
Yet another judge ruled positively about jurisdiction by ruling that any company with a presence in Spain, even if that just means a single office, could be sued for breaking the law.
Other rulings were also made that were on the side of the consumer, such as details regarding the abusive nature of some contracts.
Fernando Sansegundo, head of M1 legal, said “Things are going our way. The Spanish legal system is demonstrably coming down on the side of the victim, and it shows.”
Another record week for M1
“We are regularly breaking records in terms of how much money we win in court for our clients,” Sansegundo says. “The record for award amounts in one week was set in March this year, and was £295,000. Last week we broke that record again, less than two months later. It now stands at £310,480 and I fully expect that record itself will also soon be broken.
“The other important aspect of this record week is that it was shared between fourteen claimants meaning they were awarded an average of £22,177 each. It is a significant amount of money, and remember that these people also no longer have the financial burden of their timeshare memberships either, thanks to their wins.”
May was a big month
“We used to consider half a million Euros worth of compensation awards to be a phenomenal amount for one calendar month” says Sansegundo. “Nowadays that figure is regularly achieved. In May this year (at time of going to press, with two working days left in the month) we have already reached £703,470.
“That figure was shared between over thirty recipients. Twenty winning cases were against CLC. Nine more were against Anfi, the giant resort in Gran Canaria.”
There were also some significant individual awards. “The biggest win of the month was against CLC. The client was awarded an eye watering £69,437. CLC fought hard to appeal the initial decision, but we had that overturned at the Court of Appeal. We pretty much always do. When timeshare resorts appeal like this, it is only ever a delay. Our success rate is 98.6% and that 1.4% we did lose was in the early days, when the process was not as established as it is today.
“There was another giant win of £50,393 for a former Silverpoint owner. The judge ruled in the victim’s favour because of lack of information on the contract. Usually this means floating time or points membership, both of which have been illegal since 1999. The companies knew that they were breaking the law but chose to do so anyway in order to profit at the expense of consumers. Punishing them for this is unquestionably the right thing to do.“
Yet another case that Sansegundo is proud of is the huge win of £43,609 against Paradise Resorts, another CLC company.
“It is a significant amount of money for the claimant of course. But also, it establishes culpability for yet another CLC World entity,” says Sansegundo. “CLC has a complex corporate structure which they try to use to avoid their financial responsibilities. Luckily for their victims, judges are just not accepting that a company as wealthy as CLC is unable to meet legally awarded compensation payments to former owners.”
Want to get more advice on timeshare claims or find out about working with M1 Legal? Then contact European Consumer Claims (ECC), to get a free, no-obligation assessment.
