The Parliamentary Review is an indispensable guide to industry practice, demonstrating how sector leaders have responded to challenges in the last 12 months regarding the political and economic environment. The strategic aim of the Parliamentary Review is to raise standards by highlighting best practice in a number of industries. Over 500,000 leading business executives, policy makers and other relevant individuals will receive the document, and in recent years has featured editorial pieces from Theresa May, David Cameron and other political figures.
We are delighted to announce that we have been chosen to feature in this year’s Parliamentary Review, and Sarah Waddington will be attending the Parliamentary Review launch Gala in the coming months, that will be held at the Houses of Parliament.
By complete coincidence in May 2018, when we received an enquiry from the office of Tommy Sheppard MP.
Contacting the Scottish National Party Politician – Tommy Sheppard
Tommy was following up on two of his constituent clients of Sarah Waddington Solicitors, who we were in the process of assisting in releasing them from their timeshare, which we have subsequently managed to achieve successfully and also to obtain the return of some of the money which they paid, this has resulted in very happy and grateful clients. These were just two examples of the growing number of clients whom we are helping. One of the clients in this case was particularly vulnerable due to his age and health problems and he had been trying unsuccessfully for quite some time to get the timeshare company to engage with him. We were therefore very pleased to be able to add our legal weight to his plight to bring this to a successful outcome for him.
Following the initial contact being made by Tommy Sheppard’s MP office, we were asked whether there was anything which Tommy could do at government level to assist. Not one to lose an opportunity like this, we responded by providing some further information in general about the plight of timeshare owners in the UK and how change and support was required at a higher level to help a large number of UK based timeshare owners, who were in difficulties.
Following the exchange of a few emails and telephone calls, a meeting was arranged in July 2018 at the office of Tommy Sheppard MP in parliament street, where we were able to meet with Tommy and discuss with him the plight of the timeshare owners. He was very interested in what we had to say and indicated that he would like to try and help. An early day motion was discussed as one possible way forward and this was then drafted and submitted to Tommy who said he would submit this to try and encourage support from his other colleagues.
This was followed up with an invitation from Tommy Sheppard inviting interested members of Parliament to attend a meeting in October 2018. The early day motion is fast gathering support and we look forward to working closely with Tommy Sheppard and any other interested Members of Parliament to try and bring about positive changes at government level to support and aid the plight of long-suffering timeshare owners, many of whom feel that they have nowhere else to turn.
The Early Day Motion Tabled: 17th October 2018
That this House is concerned that the sale of membership of timeshare schemes and products often involves practices which are psychologically manipulative, use misleading information and unfairly exploit vulnerable, often elderly, consumers, leading to those consumers taking out very expensive borrowing commitments which they cannot afford; notes that the sale of membership of such schemes also ties consumers into very long-term commitments to pay large annual fees to the timeshare companies whether or not these consumers are able to make use of the schemes often leading to financial and emotional crisis and even physical illness; and is further concerned that the present UK legislative framework needs revising and improving to provide adequate protections from these practices and a method by which consumers can leave these schemes and bring their liabilities under them to an end.
We also encouraged all of our timeshare clients to contact their local MP to ask them to support the early day motion.
You can read the Sarah Waddington Solicitors parliamentary review piece online, which includes a message from Lord Pickles and Lord Blunkett.
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We are immensely proud of our achievements and look forward to helping more clients with their Timeshare cases for years to come.
If you have a Timeshare and Holiday Ownership query, think you have a case for a personal injury claim or want to see if you’re eligible for flight delay compensation, please contact Sarah Waddington Solicitors today.