This week has been a rather quiet week on the legal front, yesterday it was announced that the High Court in Santa Cruz de Tenerife ruled against Resort Properties / Silverpoint yet again. In this case the judge ruled against the points system which the contract contained. The contract was declared null & void with the award of over 44,700€ plus legal interest being made.
As this article was being prepared this latest news came in from the Supreme Court in Madrid, once again it was against the above company Silverpoint. This brings the total against them from this court to 11 rulings. Details at present are not available but the contract was once again declared to be null & void, with the return of over 20,000€ plus legal fees and legal interest.
These cases as usual were brought on behalf of clients by Canarian Legal Alliance, who have now got around 50 rulings from Spain’s highest court. Quite an achievement.
We have also this week received more enquiries about Abogados Amable & Garcia, one of the family of fake law firms which are part of the Litigious Abogados family. Luckily these readers found the article in time and have not parted with any money. It is only a matter of time before a new name appears, so if you have received any correspondence from a law firm in Tenerife which state you can be included in an upcoming trial against your timeshare resort, let us know.
Now on to Wednesday’s article from Irene.
Can the CASA Family Court System Work for Timeshare?
How members helping members can change the timeshare world
By Irene Parker
July 12, 2017
Inside Timeshare is honored and proud to be part of a movement. Our Timeshare Advocates deserve a pat on the back as we hear from more and more members either resolving issues concerning their timeshare, so they can continue to use and enjoy their vacation plan, or at least be able to get out from underneath a dream vacation that turned into a financial disaster.
Aristotle Onassis, husband of Jacki O, once said he made the most money on ideas that were very simple – only no one had thought of them before.
Such a plan is logical, effective and offers a cost benefit in that it takes some burden off the courts, the families affected, and most importantly, the trauma and stress resulting when, as NBC Lester Holt described in his Dateline title, “The state steps in”, removing a child or children from their home for often over a year.
Timeshare is not as gut-wrenching as foster care. There is nothing as profound as telling a mom or her children parental rights have been terminated. Money can be replaced, but a child cannot. However, more than once I’ve been told of elderly widows considering suicide because of a vacation plan she could not get rid of and was not able to maintain due to the loss of a spouse. Frantic, desperate, angry, confused and overwhelmed are but a few adjectives that could describe many of the calls coming into Inside Timeshare.
CASA works even better for Timeshare members
Anyone who works for a nonprofit can attest to the challenges of keeping volunteers motivated for an extended period of time. Our Timeshare Advocacy Group™ volunteers are often victims themselves, so we have a built in motivation factor. There is also the empathy and understanding that exists when someone knows exactly what it feels like to be victimized.
What is CASA or Court Appointed Special Advocates?
(CASA in some states is called Guardian ad litem)
CASA is a nationwide movement that started in 1977 when a Seattle juvenile court judge launched a program by recruiting court appointed volunteers to advocate on behalf of a child or children in state care. Examining an often convoluted family tree to decipher what went wrong and how to prove a child has been abused or neglected is a daunting task. A CASA volunteer is trained to be a detective of sorts, gathering information from all facets of the child’s life.
After gathering information, the volunteer prepares a court report letting the judge and interested parties know what outcome the child wants to see happen and what the CASA feels should happen. One judge told me she almost always takes the opinion of the CASA over the opposing counsels.
The CASA sticks with the child, interacting with the biological parents, foster parents, social services, schools, therapists and even medical doctors until permanency is achieved by returning the child to his or her biological parents, or termination of parental rights and hopefully adoption.
It’s not hard to imagine how this process could be applied towards the timeshare member victimized by deceit, concealment, violation of trust and bait and switch. Some timeshare members have multiple contracts that have been purchased over a period of years. It has been helpful to have a volunteer walk that timeshare member back to the beginning to determine, when and where, in the life of the member, did their vacation plan go so wrong.
The most successful outcome is returning a previously happy customer back to the state of mind they were in before they were deceived so that the timeshare company keeps the customer and the customer can again use and enjoy their timeshare as they did before.
Bluegreen members support other members on this Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/180578055325962/
Diamond members support other members on this Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/DiamondResortsOwnersAdvocacy/
We seek to provide Diamond Resort members a way to proactively address membership concerns; to advocate for timeshare reform; to obtain greater disclosure from the company; to advocate for a viable secondary market; and to educate prospective buyers.
A sharing of information from all Facebooks and from non-timeshare owning Advocates, like attorneys who tend to not buy timeshare, is posted on the Timeshare Advocacy Group™ Facebook, administered by Irene Allen.
https://www.facebook.com/timeshareadvocategroup/
It is hoped there will come a day when timeshare developers recognize that a product only sold through deception and a same day sale might be a product nearing the end of a maturing life cycle. Companies like Disney work hard to protect their brand and Hilton is known for a somewhat consumer friendly secondary market, although several Advocates will take exception to this statement arguing that no timeshare has an adequate secondary market.
Probably the most common comment we at Inside Timeshare hear is, “At least I know I am not alone.” Proactive action, working with a volunteer towards timeshare resolution, relinquishment, refund or even foreclosure, takes the problem from the unknown to the known. Consultants and behind-the-scenes Advocates add an additional layer of advice and protection. One very important consideration is that many of those we have helped were on their way to the upfront “guaranteed” deed-back firms that often prey on those already victimized. From this standpoint, the developer, the timeshare lobby, and the members are on the same side.
Once again thank you to all our Contributors. Contact Inside Timeshare if you, or someone you know, needs assistance or would like to share their timeshare story for the benefit of others.
Inside Timeshare cannot stress enough that doing your homework and due diligence before engaging with any company is paramount. If you need help or advice on how to do this just contact us and we will either find out for you (if we don’t have them on file already), or point you in the right direction.
Since posting it has just been brought to our attention that the Litigious Abogados Family do in fact have a new member, Amador Gameca Abogados, which is a very similar name to a previous article published on 1st June, Armando Gareca Abogados. The website is the same layout as all the others, it even show the same logo a Armando Gareca Abogados. The photos of the lawyers are the same one we have seen on previous incarnations, these you will probably find can be downloaded from the web.
This is their website.
So it just goes to show that the above picture is spot on. More on this is it comes in.
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