Holiday Property Bond

ChrisM_2

We haven't been to Langton House, so can't comment. In the UK we have been to Braithwaite in the Lake District, St. Brides Castle in Wales, Tigh Mor in Scotland, and the King's Arms at Askrigg in the Yorkshire Dales and have loved them all. Abroad we have been to La Gomera, Biniorella in Majorca, Physkos in Turkey, Rocha Brava in Portugal, Encosta Cabo Girao in Madeira and most recently Alfaix in Spain (the newest completed site and the best yet in our view!) and the standard of accommodation at all of them has been fantastic. Locations are generally superb. We've also been to one of the tenancies in Crete - which was every bit as good as the wholly-owned properties.

Some of the apartments are in old buildings - castles, stables, old mansions etc. so there is a lot of variety in the kinds of accommodation and there will be some you prefer to others. But all the equipment will be of the same high standard, the housekeeping will be excellent, the management enthusiastic and efficient (and the other guests we have always found to be a big plus )! This kind of thing is subjective of course, so it depends very much on what is important to you.

Buckland Court was where we first went to an open day and we agree that it is lovely, but others we have been to are just as good, Tigh Mor especially. The newer ones (and possibly re-furbished ones such as Buckland) are probably a bit posher than the older properties, but we love staying in old castles too. There are two new sites being developed at the moment, in Grange-over-Sands and in Northumberland - we can't wait to try them! We think it's one of the best things we every did.

Ventnorfan

Many thanks Chris. You are obviously one of the majority of satisfied HPB bondholders and your reply has certainly helped to shape our opinion.

tearing_my_hair_out

Thinking about HPB investment (again), and I'm trying to figure out if there is an advantage to joining say, on Aug 1st, rather than say, April or October. It seems to me that the points accrual and deduction means that your investment date can have an impact on whether you can book a 'special location' up to 1 or 2 years ahead (for instance in popular July) as points get deducted from most recent and future acruals first and then you may be left with a surplus of earlier accrued points you have to use in a hurry as they have limited remaining shelf life (by which time the better properties are already booked). Am I making sense?

Cant quite figure out the best time to invest . . . . does anyone have experience of booking limitations arising from their investment date???

ChrisM_2

Sorry, I don't have any bright ideas on this one! Our investment date was the end of February, but we have never tried to book anything as far ahead as 2 years, and we have never had more than a handful of points left over in the '70-day account'. Not enough for a real holiday, but we've twice enjoyed a few days at the Kings Arms with 70-day points, because you can book the hotels by the night. Now you can book quite a lot of places for half a week, too, so you can use up points doing that.

I can't quite get my head around working out how the date of investing would make a difference - I'll have to get the brain cells working.

babs98

Came across this thread because I was looking at an HPB advert and have friends who are very pleased with their membership. In the small print of the ad there is mention of HPB Management Ltd (located in England), HPB Assurance (Isle of Man), HSBC Trustee (Guernsey), Baillie Gifford and Co (Scotland), HPB Management (International) Ltd (Gibraltar). Now if you took a holiday with them in, say, Turkey, and have a dispute things could get very messy (but extremely profitable for any lawyers involved).

rickd

Probably not as you would almost certainly deal 100% with the UK office unless you were actually on-site at the time. I would expect the local management to do everything possibe to sort out whatever your issue might be there and then and not leave it until you have left the property. I'm wondering what sort of "issue" you have in mind which could lead to such a legal tangle. I'm not dismissing whatever concerns you might have but I honestly cannot think of what might get you into this sort of legal tangle. I'm a long-standing bondholder by the way and nothing to do with the management.

aladam

in 1983 I was considering time-share investment in Portugal, but came across Hapimag and HPB which was then very mich in itzs infancy. I chose Hapimag despite its substantial german speaking bias. in 2011 there are still only 50 Hapimaggers in Scotland and 2000 in UK.

My needs at the time wre for comfortable holidays in the sun with children and HPB certainly did not fit the bill then--it might now tho' the choice is not as good as Hapimag.

I bought 4 shares for £5500 and have had to pay annual management charges--use the points or not--and local charges. The charges are highish but not as high as what I pay for my sllep 8 and sleep 6 at a RCI Gold Star resort in Scotland where we use the sleep 8 every year and bank into RCI the sleep 6. I have been entirely happy with the ellep 8, which only cost me £3000 for a week in august about 14 years ago. The sleep 6 was a regretted investment asIi have had loads of trouble getting wanted locations from RCI which I am now leaving to try Dial an exchange [anyone got any comments?]

Hhowever the main thrist of this post is to consider the compariisons of Haplimag and HPB, which I am now considering because of its UK orietation. I like the idea of a try and get a full refund offer.

I sold two of my shares in Hapimag back to them in 1997 and got £8000. since then I have bought one more. we have three children-so 1 each on succession. There was a stagnation period in Hapimag in the noughties and a failed shareholder coup all of which led to considerable improvement in the offering. we have been to 22 of the locations including three which have since been sold. we like the City breaks ideas and use them. We have been to two locations 6 times each. The buy0in to Bowness on windermere has been a major success and the Hapimag built apartments are to a high standard.

I have been consulted professionally on a number of occasuions by disgruntled conventional timeshareowners and have rarely been able to help them because of the sharp practices employed by many vendors particularly to get round the FSA. All without exception have seen that Hapimag when mentioned to them is a much better proposition.

there is a useful Consumers Association article from 2005 which recognisesHhapimag and HPB as the best major operators.

Can any dispassionate poster give me more comparable experience about HPB as I am considering an investment in it?

I felt my experiences might be of interest to others.

Seronera

Hapimag and HPB have recently started doing swaps, so that Hapimag members have access to a couple of HPB properties, one of which is the HPB Madeira property, which is underused by HPB people. I'm not sure which Hapimag properties are available to HPB members though, but its all in aid of improving occupancy levels without capital outlays.

I've just arrived back yesterday from a week at the HPB property in Lanzarote...it was fine.

HPB now have many more sites than in 1983, also they have a tenancies arrangement with other locations in non HPB owned property so there is much better choice these days.

Seronera

budgetflyer

Dial an Exchange also have an arrangement with Hapimag.

yorkgeordie

As a bond holder for years my advice is dont do it. The financial arrangements are opaque to say the least and you are much better off holidaying where you want when you want without investing capital