Cancel Timeshare Maintenance Fees
This is an in depth guide into timeshare maintenance fees. Cancelling your timeshare maintenance fee contract is often much simpler than you expect. If you would like to know what options are available to you , get in touch. Our timeshare exit fees are low and we do not charge any upfront fees.
Damages for breach of a contract (including a failure to pay management fees)
Where an owner decides to stop paying management fees, we understand that timeshare businesses may claim that the owner is in breach of contract. In such circumstances businesses may try to:
- Hold the consumer to the agreement and refuse to accept the repudiatory breach, allowing the agreement to continue unaffected and the outstanding debt to grow, or
- Accept that the consumer has fundamentally breached the contract and treat it as at an end, suing for damages
Contractual Obligations
Consequently, we do not consider simply 'walking away' from contractual obligations to be a suitable remedy for consumers in these circumstances. In a contractual claim for damages, the measure of loss will begin with the business's loss of income from the consumer from the date of breach.
Damages for breach of contract are compensation to the claimant for the damage or loss they have suffered through that breach. If the claimant cannot establish an actual loss they are entitled only to nominal damages.
Where the parties have agreed that, in the event of a breach, the contract- breaker shall pay to the other a specified sum of money, we consider that such a payment may be classified as an unfair 'penalty'. Penalties are irrecoverable by law (in addition to being unfair under the UTCCRs). A payment of this type is likely to be a penalty where it exceeds a genuine attempt to estimate in advance the loss which the claimant would be likely to suffer from a breach of the obligation in question.
Minimise and Mitigate Losses
Note, however, that claimants are under a duty to take all reasonable steps to minimise and mitigate losses and are debarred from claiming for anything which is due to their neglect to take such steps. In the context of timeshare, mitigation could be achieved by the business taking active steps to re-sell or to let the timeshare to someone else.
Consideration must also be given to whether the term that the business claims to have been breached is enforceable against the consumer. For example, terms that allow the business an unfettered discretion to raise management fees to unexpected levels without a valid and transparent reason, or which require consumers to keep paying fees even after the business cancels their membership for non-payment, may give rise to a significant imbalance between the rights and obligations of the parties and may be unfair (and unenforceable) under the UTCCRs.
Ending the Contract
Where a precise amount cannot be stated in advance, terms must make clear to consumers how it will be set.
Merely stating that rises will be 'reasonable' may not be enough; it must be obvious to the consumer what would normally be thought reasonable (for example, identifiable and verifiable costs that have to be covered, but which should not be exceeded).
Any such term may be fair, though, if consumers are free to escape its effects by ending the contract without suffering any penalty or otherwise being left worse off.
Contact Us
Over the past ten years we have helped thousands of timeshare owners exit their contracts safely.
Unlike other companies, we DO NOT take ANY UPFRONT FEES. Once we have completed the process of timeshare termination, we will invoice you for the service.
We have a pre-agreed, low cost fixed fee that covers the entire cancellation of your timeshare contract and maintenance fees.
No matter where you own your timeshare, we can help.
Simply fill in your details and we will call you back. Alternativly, call us for free on 0800 0590 106.