It's been another record week for M1 Legal, breaking its record only two months after the last record was set

The latest news from Timeshare Advice Centre and European Consumer Claims.

As more victims of timeshare rack up big awards, M1 Legal continues to set more records

Spanish judges find in favour of timeshare victims

In Tenerife's Arona Court number three, the judges change on a regular basis. Recently, new justices appear to be focusing increasingly on the rights of the consumer, which is good news for timeshare victims.

For example, a judge recently ruled that "CLC World (CLC) acted in bad faith by alleging that the vendor agency was on behalf of another company".

This is referring to a classic tactic that timeshare resorts use to try and hide behind different companies. However, this time, the judge would not accept it.

Another judge ruled that if a company has any presence in Spain, even just an office, it can be sued if it breaks the law.

And further rulings were made that all favoured the consumer, including details about contracts and their often abusive nature.

All in all, according to the head of M1 Legal, Fernando Sansegundo, "Things are going our way."

More records being set by M1

Sansegundo also highlighted how the team is "regularly breaking records in terms of how much money we win in court for our clients."

In fact, the previous record for weekly awards (£295,000) was only set in March 2022.

But that record has already fallen, and the new record is now £310,480 -- a record that Sansegundo expects will soon be broken yet again.

This record week's awards were shared by 14 claimants, which was an average claim amount of £22,177. In addition, they no longer have to pay for their timeshare memberships, saving even more money.

A record month in May

Sansegundo says that half a million Euros in compensation awards used to be considered a phenomenal amount for a month. "Nowadays," however, "that figure is regularly achieved. In May this year (at time of going to press, with two working days left in the month) we have already reached £703,470."

This figure was shared by over 30 claimants, with 20 winning cases being against CLC and a further nine being against Anfi.

But there were also some big individual awards too, with the largest win being against CLC.

Here, an "eye-watering £69,437" was awarded to the client. And even though CLC tried to appeal the decision, M1 had the case overturned at the Court of Appeal.

As Sansegundo says, "when timeshare resorts appeal like this, it is only ever a delay. Our success rate is 98.6% and that 1.4% we did lose was in the early days, when the process was not as established as it is today."

Another huge win went to a former Silverpoint owner who was awarded the sum of £50,393. In this case, a lack of information on the contract led to the judge ruling in favour of the claimant.

This usually refers to something like floating time or points membership. While both have been illegal for over two decades, companies broke the law knowingly to profit from consumers. The fact that they are now being punished for their actions is clearly a representation of doing the right thing for consumers.

Finally, Sansegundo highlights the £43,609 awarded against Paradise Resorts

"It is a significant amount of money for the claimant of course. But also, it establishes culpability for yet another CLC entity," he said. "CLC has a complex corporate structure which they try to use to avoid their financial responsibilities. Luckily for their victims, judges are just not accepting that a company as wealthy as CLC is unable to meet legally awarded compensation payments to former owners."

For more advice on making a timeshare claim or to find out about working with M1 Legal, simply get in touch with Timeshare Advice Centre, for a no-obligation assessment.