Fred Philpott reports on a rare but significant victory for timeshare companies under the cosh in the Spanish heat
- Timeshare in Spain has for many decades been a significant topic in UK law.
- Timeshare owners have sought to get out of their contracts most recently using Spanish legal proceedings.
- The European Court has significantly reduced that opportunity.
Timeshare has been a main factor for many holidaymakers since the 1970s. It has had bad press but there have been many satisfied timeshare owners as recognised by the Office of Fair Trading report going back to 1992, Initially there was fixed timeshare whereby someone paid for one or two fixed weeks for every year in the same resort at the same apartment (which was very attractive to many people for reasons of certainty and sociability). The product moved to floating timeshare (the same resort but with different apartments or weeks as a possibility) and now points. Points are now the normal. A consumer will buy a number of points giving access, having regard to the value of the points,
