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Timeshare and holiday clubs
What is "timeshare"?
Timeshare is the annual right to use accommodation during 1 or more weeks in a holiday property or several properties. In Europe, there are approximately 1500 timeshare resorts.
What is the EU doing about it?
The EU regulates aspects of timeshare, long-term holiday products, resale and exchange contracts.
New products and contracts were emerging that were not regulated. That was causing problems to consumers as evidenced by complaints on:
Timeshare-like products e.g. timeshare in canal boats, cruise-ships and caravans or timeshare contracts for less than 3 years;
Holiday discount clubs;
Resale and exchange of timeshare schemes.
EU legislation on timeshare
In 2009 the new Directive 2008/122/EC replaced the old Timeshare Directive 94/47/EC with
clearer and simpler rules.
The new Directive covers the market changes and new products e.g. holiday clubs, resale and
exchange.
Key points of the new Directive
Full harmonisation;
Detailed rules on pre-contractual information;
Cooling-off period is 14 calendar days;
Prohibits traders or any third party from asking consumers for deposits, advance payment, guarantees, reservation of money on accounts, explicit acknowledgment of debt or any other
during the cooling-off period;
Specific payment rules for long-term holiday product contracts;
Compulsory penalties (national) if the trader does not comply with the national rules implementing
the Directive.
When did the new rules come into force?
The Directive came into force on 23 February 2009. EU countries have 2 years from that date to
transpose it into national law.
The UK European Consumer Centre has available a free newsletter, “UK ECC – your update”.
The aim of the newsletter is to provide you, the consumer, with a flavour of what the UK ECC does,
provide examples of cases we have been working on and, more importantly, provide you with the best advice on cross-border shopping. Please use the link below to subscribe to our newsletter.
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