posted 20th November 2024
Did you take out a timeshare finance loan through HMC Funding? Did they broker your deal with Barclays Partner Finance, Shawbrook or Hitachi? Or did they put you on a fixed-term loan or get you to remortgage your house to reduce the payments on your Barclay's timeshare loan? If so, you could qualify for compensation.
Read the article published in the 2005 Mortgage Strategy magazine
In 2005, Ron Howell's company, HMC Funding, joined sides with the timeshare industry and brokered a deal between Resort Properties (Silverpoint) in Tenerife and Barclays Partner Finance that saw an explosion in unfair lending. The collaboration has already resulted in over 50 million pounds being paid to Azure Resorts timeshare victims.
Barclays Partner Finance (Clydesdale Financial Services) first provided financing to the timeshare industry, known as Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), which has since been regulated under the FCA guidelines due to mass mis-selling and consumer detriment across the UK.
Barclays later removed this type of financing due to the mass mis-selling by the unregulated timeshare industry. Victims were left with huge debts after they were inflicted with interest rates of 19.9% after the initial six-month interest-free period had finished.
Many of these victims were told that self-financing timeshare deals would cover their monthly payments after the initial six-month interest-free period had expired. However, these illegal timeshare investments never came to fruition, and victims were left with huge, unaffordable loans that inevitably ruined many people's financial futures.
Club La Costa soon began a relationship with HMC Funding, which saw an astronomical increase in point-of-sale loans provided by Shawbrook Bank for timeshare memberships across Spain and the UK. Many of these loans were provided for Club La Costa's illegally sold Fractional Ownership, deemed mis-sold in the high court in May of 2023.
If you haven't made a timeshare claim for your Club La Costa Fractional Membership, get in touch.
Hidden Commissions Claims.
When they took out the loan, timeshare owners were unaware that CLC included an undisclosed fee of at least a 10% commission in the gross purchase price. This fee, known as a hidden commission/facility fee, was paid to the lender by Club La Costa to provide the point-of-sale finance facility.
Not only did the extra 10% increase what the client was paying, but also the overall interest on the loan. This undisclosed fee and the remaining contract value could make the contract revokable and refundable.
Where HMC Funding was acting as a broker and not declaring the hidden commission for timeshare loans and remortgages, this could also now be reclaimable.
If you have had a loan provided by HMC Funding (Business Brokers Limited) and they haven't declared their hidden fee, or Barclays, Shawbrook Bank, or Hitachi have done the same, or you would like to check if they have done so, get in touch. We will check your contract for free and let you know if you have a viable chance of a claim. Our free claim viability check also benefits from not paying us anything unless we win.
