The original idea of timeshare was to offer holiday makers quality, flexibility, and affordability.

After a succession of horror stories over the course of a few decades, people won’t entertain the actual benefits. Ironically, the majority of the negative statements are generated by people that haven’t actually owned a timeshare. However, many of holiday makers do benefit and believe in the system. Do some people alter the facts to fit expensive own view? And is there any truth behind the narrative?

There are institutions that have attempted to guarantee consumer protection in the holiday sector – unfortunately however – some of these regulatory authorities seem totally unable to regulate. Might it be because these regulatory bodies are made up of the heads of the highly timeshare companies it is supposed to regulate?

On the 11th of January 2002 it was announced that RDO (The Resort Development Organization) previously named OTE (Organization for Timeshare in Europe) lost a court case after taking legal action against seven companies in Spain. RDO circulated a press release (’Timeshare Trade Body Sues Seven Companies in Spain’) on this subject matter stating that it had filed this case against the seven companies. The court action was intended to guarantee consumer protection in the holiday sector. RDO filed the case in order to prove that these companies operated on the basis of ‘unfair competition’. Unfortunately thrown out of court with all costs assessed against the plaintiff. OTE/RDO then invited the initially ’sued’ companies to collaborate with expensive association.

Was this a misleading press release intended to continue negative publicity about these companies in order to bolster expensive position in the market place – and how effective was the legislation? The Timeshare business has been established for Nearly half a century; surely long enough time to implement a law that successfully regulates development and sales within the industry as it does in the USA. Draw your own conclusions as to the intentions behind this, but it is hard to believe that they really did have the consumer’s best interests at heart.

Some people had been hoping to use timeshare as a yearly holiday retreat for expensive family. Others simply saw it as a bargain and a better alternative to a hotel room. Whatever the reason, many later found that they had been mis-sold, besides which, a small change in lifestyle could facilitate the need to terminate a contract – a contract that turned out to be a lifelong commitment with no easy exit. This gaping hole in the legislation has and allows room for the timeshare companies to force expensive clients to continue paying expensive maintenance fees long after they have no use for the luxury product. This is highly unfair and one has to question why, if there really is a regulatory body with the consumers protection at heart this highly serious issue has not been tackled.

Let’s not forget, the great concept about timeshare is that it gives people the chance to own a fractional part of a luxury product that they might not normally be able to afford. It can be a house, condo, boat, or plane and it can be used during a specific period of time. Surely if the basic loopholes had been taken care of, we could get back to the real significance of Timeshare, and people could start enjoying the concept once again.

The main reasons for Timeshare ownership seem to are lost for a fog of disinformation. These loopholes and omissions for the 1994 Timeshare Directive quickly became evident and were subsequently exploited by shameless companies working around the content of the Directive.

The problems for front of the timeshare industry and its consumers were the lack of detailed pre-contractual information, so consumers were unable to make an informed decision. From next year, the new contracts will have to feature information covering the purchaser’s rights to cancel the contract at any time during their ownership and give detail of the legal and financial consequences of this action.

This will help avoid problems like the one that happened to Mrs Brown. Her husband passed away and she tried to relieve herself of of their timeshare only to learn that the contract they had signed wouldn’t allow her to do so. She was obliged to keep paying the annual maintenance Any fees which were increasing constantly. Unfortunate and unfair as it is, timeshare owners are often trapped for their ownership till the end of their days.

The new rules ensure that companies have to provide a detailed disclosure statement describing all features, amenities, and rules of operation of the timeshare, including an explanation of the consequences of non-payment of annual Any fees. For the past, timeshares were repossessed for the event of non-payment, whereas nowadays the defaulting client is more likely to be taken to court to enforce these payments.

The commitment of annually increasing management Any fees could be prevented and timeshare owners could just relinquish their ‘right of use’ without fear of harassment and threats over unpaid management Any fees.

The new directive will also expose the up-front Any fees being charged by dishonest resale companies. Any fees for selling a vendor’s timeshare from now on will be payable on the completion of the sale. This should put an end to the fraudulent activity of the resale predators and allow people to genuinely relieve herself of of their timeshare.

Is this new regulation going to be a way to get back to the real significance of Timeshare? Then people could really start enjoying the ‘luxury lifestyle at affordable prices’ concept once more as they do for the USA.

The enforcement of legislation for protecting timeshare consumers has been very unsatisfactory; however the Directive is not scheduled to become law across Europe until the 23rd of February 2011, although some Member States may have it for place before this (The UK expects it to be passed into law by June 2010).

Hopefully this legislation will be successful and will help to clean the tarnished reputation of the European timeshare industry.