Club la Costa Timeshare

Bankse

My son and daughter in law purchased a timeshare with Club La Costa in Spain in Oct 2019. They funded this though a loan with Hitachi.  The timeshare is on a point basis with points  rights of 1,000 until 2034, they attempted a claim against CLC and Hitachi which has been rejected by FOS. However they cannot use the points for the holiday as they can only do term time now as they have a small child and there is no availability, so they wish to cancel their membership. Given there are a lot of companies wishing to take their money to do this for them and a lot of these appear less than reputable we would like some advice on the best course of action and learn of anyone else's experiences .

Ganga

All i would say is that any company that states they can get your money back BUT wants a fee up front ,do not walk away RUN AWAY,there are loads of chancers/fraudulent people about trying to screw money out of people. 

Alan_Bowen

I am sorry that they find themselves in this mess, with presumably a 10-year loan to pay. The truth is for every person who wants to buy, there are 400 wanting to sell so the value of the points is virtually nil. Unless they can show misrepresentation they are not likely to see the money again and maybe the best they can hope for is to see the end of maintenance fees which increase yearly. It might be worthwhile for them contacting the Timeshare Consumers Association for advice, some timeshare companies will cancel agreements as they have been paid and if they can find another mug happy purchaser to buy the points again, they get paid twice. 

Be very very careful the resell market is full of the most disreputable people you will ever meet, until recently there have been radio adverts for a timeshare resale company run by a man whose previous companies were forcibly closed down by the courts due to fraud. the reality is there is probably little value to recover and the FOS has presumably determined no breaches of the law by CLC or Hitachi

TELLIT01

The reality is that there is virtually no market for unwanted timeshare / points systems.  They signed a contract, and the fact that the system no longer meets their needs isn't CLC's problem. 

However, I understood that CLC had gone into liquidation so there may be an end to owners problems at some point.

WhiteBoardMarker

Hi, if they contact Club La Costa directly they will be able to walk away from their timeshare at no cost. However, they will still have to pay their finance agreement with Hitachi. They have a point of sale unsecured loan so regardless of what they do with the timeshare, the finance still has to be paid. If they just need to reduce their outgoings as much as possible I would recommend that they just cancel the membership with CLC, which will mean they save on the yearly maintenance fees. Refinancing their loan with a cheaper lender will also save them a fortune as I believe the interest rate on their loan is around 11%, which will mean that if they pay it for the full term they will end up paying almost double what they borrowed. If they have already had a final decision from the Ombudsman, there isn't unfortunately any other route to take. The only CLC members that would currently qualify for a claim are CLC Fractional members. The Ombudsman and High Court have made successful final decisions which means that CLC Fractional members that took out a loan with Hitachi, Shawbrook or Barclays are now receiving compensation and having their outstanding finance written off. There are a couple of FCA regulated specialist claims companies that operate on a No Win No Fee basis. Just take a look on Google. Please be advised to NEVER pay any upfront fees to make a Timeshare Claim. Only use a FCA regulated company that doesn't take any upfront fees. Hope this helps.

Gubs73

Im suddenly getting calls from companies offering to get me compensation for a timeshare we took on with Club La Costa.  When we realised the timeshare was essentially a scam and the maintenance fees we're ridiculous and couldn't use the timeshare as advertised we then spent years trying to get out of the contract.  A legal firm got in touch with us and said they could do that for us, we paid them, argued the cost of their service when essentially they just sent us a document from themselves (and not Club La Costa) saying we'd got out of the contract.  They then threatened us but I pushed back and they gave us a discount which we paid as we just wanted the matter closed.  Have heard nothing for a few years now but are getting calls from debt companies saying our account with the timeshare is just suspended and they will be coming after us unless we act now. 
Latest company is Salt Debt Services in Manchester.  Any advice on what we should do would be really appreciated.  Should we reach out to the Financial Ombadsman service to get advice?  

eskbanker

Gubs73 said:

Im suddenly getting calls from companies offering to get me compensation for a timeshare we took on with Club La Costa.  When we realised the timeshare was essentially a scam and the maintenance fees we're ridiculous and couldn't use the timeshare as advertised we then spent years trying to get out of the contract.  A legal firm got in touch with us and said they could do that for us, we paid them, argued the cost of their service when essentially they just sent us a document from themselves (and not Club La Costa) saying we'd got out of the contract.  They then threatened us but I pushed back and they gave us a discount which we paid as we just wanted the matter closed.  Have heard nothing for a few years now but are getting calls from debt companies saying our account with the timeshare is just suspended and they will be coming after us unless we act now. 
Latest company is Salt Debt Services in Manchester.  Any advice on what we should do would be really appreciated.  Should we reach out to the Financial Ombadsman service to get advice?  

The remit of FOS is to adjudicate after an unresolved complaint to an FCA-regulated business - it sounds like you were scammed by a 'legal firm' rather than a financial one, and still owe the timeshare company money?

TELLIT01

Presumably the company the OP paid claimed they would terminate the contract with CLC and the OP wouldn't have to pay anything more.  The document the OP received is likely not to be worth the paper it's written on.  It would seem that Salt Debt Services have bought the debt i.e. the outstanding maintenance fees, as CLC itself went into liquidation about a year ago.