Timeshare arrangements are often fraught with difficulty and their legal status can be difficult to determine. The starting point is, in what country is the timeshare located? The agreement and the country’s legal system is, therefore, the starting point. For example, in some states of the USA, some kinds of timeshare interests can be interests in real property.
In Europe, however, timeshare interests are, in general, personal rights only (though see France, for example, for some limited exceptions). European law has traditionally considered timeshare interests as falling under consumer law but there is currently no real uniformity across EC states as to how the current EC Directive should be implemented.
The new EC Timeshare directive (2008/122/EC) due to become law throughout the EC in 2011 and which seeks to establish uniformity among EC states defines a timeshare interest as “a consumer right, lasting for more than 1 year, to use accommodation for more than one period of occupation”, requires that timeshares “must not be sold as an investment” and must specify “the law under which the contract is governed”. The consumer must be given a written contract, which must include “the exact nature of his rights”.
See: http://www.timeshare.org.uk/td8.doc
Legal advice should be sought as to whether rights are merely personal, whether they have real value and whether those rights are transferable for value.
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