Joint Court suspends penalties for Alegria in case against Timeshare Owners at Caravanserai

October 15, 2015 9:42 AM
PHILIPSBURG--The Joint Court of Justice has suspended the enforceability of orders for remedial actions given to Alegría Real Estate BV in its case against the Timeshare Owners at Caravanserai Association (TOCA), and some seventeen individual owners of timeshare units of the former Caravanserai property, as stipulated in a preliminary ruling by the Court of First Instance on August 21.
 
The new decision was delivered on October 14, in Curaçao. The preliminary ruling itself, however, remains, which holds that protective rental laws apply to the timeshare owners.
 
Attorney-at-law Martyn Schellekens of Lexwell Attorneys at Law explained to newspaper The Daily Herald in August that the case on the merits may take another eight months to a year. In the meantime, the ruling in favour of the timeshare owners defined what has to be abided by.
 
The now-suspended orders entailed allowing timeshare owners access to their properties within five days, providing they pay the required maintenance fees. In case of non-compliance, Alegría would have had to pay a daily fine of US $1,000 per TOCA-member, to a maximum of US $25,000 per member.
 
The resort owner also was ordered to pay each of the individual owners the amount of US $27,589 with interest, and pay the cost of the legal proceedings.
 
The Joint Court of Justice, however, found that there was a risk of Alegría not receiving restitution if it paid out, in the event that the preliminary ruling would be overturned at a later date. All TOCA members and individual timeshare owners concerned reside abroad, adding to this risk.
The Court also considered that Alegría’s interest in suspending the enforceability of the judgment weighed heavier than those of TOCA and the other timeshare owners to enforce it.
 
When approached for comment, the TOCA Board told this newspaper that it was still busy reviewing the verdict before considering options. However, the Board pointed out that the ruling remained the same, and that although one is expected, TOCA has not formally been served any appeals to the August ruling by Alegría.
 
Furthermore, TOCA added that the Joint Court of Justice denied Alegría’s request for an expeditious appeal on the injunction which was incorporated in Alegría’s suspension request.
 
The Court of First Instance decision of August 21 has been hailed as welcomed news to the 62 people represented by TOCA, the individual owners involved in the case, as well as many tourism and timeshare stakeholders.
 
Although not final, it was called “a very good foundation for proceedings on the merits,” by Schellekens.
 
St. Maarten’s name was smeared as a destination with no protection for timeshare owners who invest, when approximately 2,200 timeshare owners were informed that their rights had been annulled following Alegría’s purchase of the Caravanserai property through a Scotiabank public auction in August 2014 for US $14 million.
 
The TOCA group claims to have collectively lost US $1.5 million in advance rent payments.
 
 
In this case Alegria Real Estate B.V. was represented by attorneys Chris van Amersfoort, Chris de Bres and Eric de Vries of HBN Law.
The timeshare owners at Caravanserai association were represented by lawyers Mark Kortenoever and Martyn Schellekens of Lexwell Attorneys at Law.
 
 
 
 
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