Transfer Smart News: Timeshare Owners Win Legal Battle Over Management Companies

The timeshare industry is considered one of the most complained industry today especially in UK. This image makes some owners want to get out of their timeshares. While some, with the power of the owner’s committee or timeshare owners association, voice out their complaints and settle further legally.

In Lock Rannoch, one of UK’s most remote timeshare resorts, an owner’s committee fends off two management companies it has dismissed and continues a 10-year legal battle. During the annual meeting of the Loch Rannoch Highland Club, the elected committee beat off challenges from disgruntled owners and insisted it would continue to manage the resort itself, using volunteers, book-keeping software, and an auditor, having dismissed first Macdonald Hotels and then a successor company set up by owners at the instigation of the committee itself.

In the past year, the club has paid £550,000 plus over £200,000 in legal fees to settle court action by Macdonald, and been served with a claim for £389,000 for wrongful termination of contract by Timeshare Management Services Ltd (TMSL), whose founders are now agitating against the committee.

Meanwhile, Macdonald Hotels, the UK’s leading timeshare operator, has been manoeuvring to try to harness owner discontent and eventually regain the contract for managing the resort next to its Loch Rannoch hotel, which it lost in 2003 after taking dozens of owners to court, refusing industry mediation, and banning holidaymakers from the hotel bar.

While many owners try to get rid of their timeshares and some even hire a timeshare transfer company such as the Transfer Smart just to get rid of such property, others still hold on to their units while legally pursuing their complaints. In this way, they hoped that they have a better chance of winning their rights as a consumer.