| Bulletins 61-70 Here Bulletins 41-50 Here Bulletins 31-40 Here Bulletins 21-30 Here Bulletins 11-20 Here Bulletins 1-10 Here |
| Chairman’s Bulletin Board – Nos 51-60 |
| Bulletin No. 60 – Schedule of Legal Activities Update, 16 November 2019 The latest legal matters update can be viewed here . Bulletin No. 59 – Restaurant/Bar Franchise, 16 & 24 November and 11 December 2019 Update 11th December 2019: The Club Chairman’s reply to Mr Barrow’s letter of 28 November 2019, received 9 December 2019, is now available for registered owners to read here. Update 24th November 2019: Mr Barrow signed for my letter on 7th November at his home address which he wishes to keep private. His reply of 12th November can be seen here. It is addressed from WimPen’s office in Tenerife and did not arrive with me until 18th November. I replied, clearly stating my dissatisfaction, on 23rd November which you can read here. Initial feedback about the restaurant from members at the resort is not good. Mr Barrow has confirmed that although he does not have access to the owners’ website he has many friends and supporters who keep him informed, which extends to providing him with screenshots of the contents of the website. This is a serious breach of confidentiality as this website is for registered owners only. Action has been taken to temporarily block the access of owners who logged on to the website when my letter to Mr Barrow was available, initially for a short period, before being withdrawn to meet his request for his address to be blocked out. An investigation will follow. 16th November 2019: A reply is awaited from Roger Barrow to my letter of 4 November regarding the restaurant/bar franchise which can be viewed here. Bulletin No. 58 – Club Members’ Ownership Certificates, 13 November 2019 With reference to Bulletin No. 52 below, Club Members who have sold their week(s) privately, and those who have ownership certificates issued by WimPen/Onagrup since 3 May 2017 that they have not sent to the Club Chairman for a free replacement to be issued by the Club, should do so by 31 December 2019. (See Bulletin No. 52 for full details of how to do this). After this date a fee of £100 will be charged for replacement certificates. If you have become an owner since May 2017, or know of others who have, the Committee strongly recommends that in order to meet the requirements of Club membership, and to protect your ownership, you/they urgently register full contact details and week(s) of ownership on the owner website https://www.losclavelesowners.eu. Bulletin No. 57 – Legal Matters Update, 21 October 2019 In the past few days the following developments have taken place. 2nd Arbitration At WimPen/Onagrup’s request, and with our agreement, rearranged dates for the 2nd arbitration hearings in Edinburgh have been fixed for 18th and 19th December 2019. FNTC FNTC has now appealed the court order made by Lord Armstrong at the Court of Session on 30 September 2019, and agreed by both parties, that the case should proceed to trial. Lord Armstrong’s opinion on the legal issues raised by this case are available for members to read on the scotcourts.gov.uk website (Search Judgements>Court of Session>Club Los Claveles). In Lord Armstrong’s opinion the letter of termination sent to FNTC in 2012 was valid, and FNTC was not entitled to the indemnity that it was seeking before signing the deed of retirement. We await further legal advice regarding FNTC’s appeal. Spanish Legal Cases We await developments and will report on these when we have further information. We are hopeful that this will be before the end of the year. Bulletin No. 56 – Club AGM, 27 April 2019 Thank you to all our members who took part in today’s AGM. The votes in favour of agenda items 1 to 6 were approximately 1550 ‘For’ and 100 ‘Against’, agenda item 7: 1537 to 105, and the reverse for resolutions 8 to 10: 118 to 1524, 170 to 1472 and 125 to 1517. This represents a resounding vote of confidence in the Club’s current strategy and leadership which are on track to deliver the much needed legal landmarks in 2019 that will turn the tide of control firmly in favour of members. Bulletin No. 55 – Small Claims Court dismisses claim against the Club, 1st April 2019 The Club Chairman successfully defended a claim made in the Small Claims Court for the return of maintenance fees paid to the Club. The judge dismissed the case which had the written support of Mr Roger Barrow, purported President of the Los Claveles Development Owners Association, and the personal support of two members of the group opposed to the Club Committee. Bulletin No. 54 – The Current Situation, 27 December 2018 In response to Bulletin No. 53 the purported President of the Development Owners Association (DOA) stated on social media that “WimPen have not, do not and will not take payment instructions from me”. This is completely at odds with the WimPen lawyer’s statement in court in Arona, Los Cristianos on 5th December 2018, and after a little checking we discover that the same DOA President wrote on 6th September 2018: “I have instructed WimPen only to accept cash or bank transfer from owners who have claimed or attempted to claim on credit card or have encouraged others to do the same. Other owners can pay online as usual. Only a very few owners have successfully claimed (which is not true) and they will be required to repay their debt with any relevant bank charges before being permitted to use their villa next time.” So, we can conclude that the WimPen lawyer was telling the truth after all. WimPen does take payment instructions from the purported DOA President. Will he now do the right thing and instruct WimPen to obey the law and stop collecting payments? Following the Arona Court judgement of 12th December 2018, WimPen’s lawyer has stated on social media that WimPen will appeal, while the Club’s Spanish lawyer has made it very clear that, appeal or no appeal, WimPen is in contempt of court by continuing to collect payments after the date of the court judgement. He will seek an order for the return to the Club of all fees illegally collected by WimPen since 3rd May 2017. If, as expected, Wimpen’s appeal fails, they will have no choice but to stop issuing invoices and collecting payments. Club members will only have to pay their Club invoice which is what the judge said should have happened following the expiry of the confirmatory agreement on 2nd May 2017. WimPen will then be forced to abide by the DOA Statutes to calculate a common parts service charge, have this approved at the DOA AGM and collect the charge from the Club and the Escritura Communities. Members will recall that the former President of the DOA ignored 3 separate requests from the Club for this to be done, and the current purported DOA President declined to respond to the same request made at the DOA AGM in May 2018. Meanwhile, members report that WimPen continues to demand payment before allowing them to access their apartments, in contempt of court. In this situation, Club members who have already paid the Club will be forced to pay again to WimPen. These double payments will be refunded when WimPen is forced to return all payments. However until then, because WimPen are demanding back payments, many Club members will simply not be able to afford these payments. Inevitably, this will cause stress and potential loss of holidays, and whilst damages can be claimed from WimPen by the Club’s Spanish lawyer, it will be difficult and upsetting for the Club members who are caught up in it. The one person who can stop this from happening is the purported President of the DOA. Simply by instructing WimPen to obey the court judgement and to stop collecting payments, he can save members from all of the stress and the upset. According to a previous statement that he has made, his responsibility is to ensure that WimPen, as DOA Administrators, maintain the viability of the resort as they manage the combined community account. He can and should be doing this by instructing WimPen to: 1. Obey the law now and stop demanding payments from Club members. 2. Comply with the Arbitration Award. 3. Abide by the DOA Statutes, as referred to above. That way he would be truly looking after members’ interests, instead he has chosen to collude with WimPen in continuing to break the law, resist arbitration orders and ignore the Statutes. These are all deliberate controlling actions designed to keep WimPen in power. As such, the Club will press on with the strategy of removing WimPen, FNTC, and the purported President of the DOA as quickly as possible. Inevitably, this will involve further short term pain for long term gain for members, but we need to stay strong as we are already well on our way to achieving our independence. Bulletin No. 53 – Merry Christmas, 25 December 2018 Merry Christmas from the Committee. We hope you have a wonderful festive season. Before going on holiday, the Club’s Spanish lawyer provided the Committee with the two court judgements that are now on the owners’ website for members to read. Both court documents have been translated from Spanish to English and have been verified by the translator. Our Spanish lawyer also commenced the work he needs to do to secure the Club’s funds from WimPen as a result of the arbitration award, and the recovery of payments illegally collected by WimPen since 3 May 2017. For their part, WimPen have taken the first step to comply with the arbitration award. All of WimPen’s objections to the arbitration award that were lodged with the court in June 2018 were rejected by the Judge who recognized the award in its entirety. That is why our Spanish lawyer said it was important for the judgement to be published to members so you could see at first hand what had been decided. The Judge has delegated practical enforcement of the award to the same court as the Tenerife case that I attended in Arona, Los Cristianos at the beginning of December. Let’s hope we get the same Judge! At that Arona Court case I witnessed WimPen’s lawyer saying in open court that the case should have been brought against the President of the Owners’ Association, not WimPen, as they were following the President’s instructions in collecting payments, and were not responsible. When sending me the Judge’s ruling in favour of the Club, our Spanish lawyer was very clear that if WimPen continued to follow the President’s instructions to collect payments after receiving the judgement, they would be in contempt of court, regardless of the appeal process. Members have reported to the Committee that WimPen have continued to collect payments and therefore they are in contempt of court. Our Spanish lawyer will bring this to the Judge’s attention when he resumes in January. In the meantime, members who are going to the resort in the next few weeks, and RCI members waiting for their rights to be restored, should contact the President to make their feelings known and to demand that he instructs WimPen to obey the court judgement and stop collecting payments. His email address is rogerbarrow@losclaveles.eu Bulletin No. 52 – Club Members Ownership Certificates, 18 December 2018 Some weeks ago WimPen suddenly stopped issuing membership certificates on behalf of the Club, 3 years after all delegations to act on behalf of the Club’ – including the issuing of certificates – was removed. The Committee suspects that this sudden change by WimPen is to support its false argument that the Club is not a legal entity and therefore cannot issue certificates. We will not assist WimPen by explaining why its argument is false, but owners can be assured that it is. Since its contract with the Club ended, WimPen has been both illegally issuing Club certificates and importantly failing to notify the Club (as required under the Constitution) of the details of the new owners. By their illegal actions, WimPen has been placing new owners in a highly vulnerable position in relation to their unrecorded ownership. The Committee is deeply concerned for the purchasers of Club weeks from sales undertaken by WimPen (or any individual or organisation acting on its behalf) since May 3rd 2017, both those who have been issued with certificates by WimPen and those who have not received a certificate due to the sudden change. If you have become an owner since May 2017, or know of others who have, the Committee strongly recommends that in order to meet the requirements of Club membership, and to protect your ownership, you/they urgently register full contact details and week(s) of ownership on the owner website https://www.losclavelesowners.eu. Most importantly the Committee advises that in order to legitimatise ownership, certificates issued by WimPen are sent by recorded delivery to the Club Chairman, Mr Albert Fletcher at 98 Bleak Hill Road, Erdington, Birmingham B23 7BT (Tel +44 121 350 3326, email albertejfletcher@icloud.com ) with your full contact details. If you have not received a certificate as a result of WimPen’s actions you must send full evidence of your purchase and a payment of £100 * to cover the administration charge for each week purchased. An authentic certificate will then be issued. Similarly, any member who has sold their week(s) privately should complete the details requested on the back of the certificate and send it to the Chairman together with the details of the new owner and payment, as above. They should also ensure that they remove their week(s) from the owners’ website and advise the purchaser to register their contact details and week(s) on the website ASAP. * Bank transfer payments are preferred if possible • Bank: HSBC • Account Name: Club Los Claveles Ltd • Account number: 01770551 • Sort Code: 40 – 35 – 19 • Please include your name/certificate number Bulletin No. 51 – Reimbursement of Second Payments of Membership Fees paid to WimPen Onagrup The Committee is only too aware of the distress that WimPen Onagrup is causing by extorting a second payment of membership fees from Club members who have already paid these fees to the Club, as legally required by the Club Constitution. In order to relieve the distress, the Committee will ensure that members who are out of pocket as a result of this action by WimPen Onagrup will have any irrecoverable second payments reimbursed when the Club receives its funds from WimPen Onagrup, as ordered by the independent arbitrator and Court of Session Appeal Court Judge, Lord Clark. The Committee would like to thank members who have put themselves to considerable upset and expense over this issue, and have been patiently awaiting the outcome of legal action against WimPen Onagrup to put a stop to it. Regrettably, this is taking longer than anticipated which is frustrating for all concerned, as is the confidentiality restriction on reporting the second arbitration that WimPen Onagrup has started, especially when we have uplifting developments to share with you. In the long run, when all of this is over, the Committee will propose at a general meeting that members who have upheld their constitutional responsibilities in these very trying circumstances are recognised and rewarded for their support and loyalty to the Club. |