The Government is considering legislation on timeshares which would clean up the sales process and give owners proper control over their resorts.

Consultation from the Department of Trade and Industry on the industry's problems closes at the end of this month. Its discussion paper notes ''post-contractual complaints'', as opposed to sales problems, have increased over the past year and ''most of the complaints concern resorts owned by a particular developer''.

As The Herald reported last year, Barratt International Resorts Limited (Birl), jointly owned by Barratt and Macdonald Hotels, has faced a barrage of complaints from owners at its six UK resorts, four of them in Scotland, over the introduction of special refurbishment levies.

The most serious incident blew up at an owners committee meeting at Forest Hills near Aberfeldy, where the vote against a levy was over-ruled despite complaints that proper information had not been circulated to owners and new committee candidates not allowed to stand. At Forest Hills, the chairman of the committee supposed to represent the owners is now Gordon Fraser, managing director of Birl.

Manchester-based owners David and Christine Abbot

last year won a ruling at Stirling sheriff court against Birl's attempt to eject them

as owners because they had

set up a Barratt Owners Group website.

Birl last Christmas launched a #50,000 damages action against the couple, who are defending themselves by pursuing their own action at Stirling claiming that the refurbishment levy at Forest Hills was imposed without proper authority. The latest Forest Hills club newsletter states, however, that costs have increased ''due to the costs of defending a legal action raised by owners David and Christine Abbott against the club''.

David Abbott said this week he believed that if Birl lost the case, which is now at the debate stage, it would continue to appeal and might force him to walk away. ''There is a point of principle here, we think we are right and we are prepared to carry on until we can no longer carry on.''

At the Dalfaber resort, the committee chaired by owner John Johnston has more robustly pointed out: ''It will come as no surprise to owners to hear that Birl is not averse to moving the goalposts during negotiations.''

Johnston said this week: ''Legally, up to the point of sale buyers are fairly well protected, but thereafter it seems there is scope for some sort of legal framework to better protect owners.''

The DTI paper says

post-contractual matters fell outside the scope of the present law, but owners believed their rights were ''often diminished by timeshare developers who seem to be able to disregard previous contractual obligations and introduce terms which favour the developer at the expense of the owner''.

The paper admits that the issue of maintenance payments is a difficult one because many owners, especially retired people, are reluctant to pay for up-dating, while developers need to invest to attract new buyers. Owners' groups had suggested owners become responsible for the resort once 50% of the development was sold, that all investment funds went into a separate escrow account, and that all sinking funds (for depreciation)

be kept under owners' committee control.

The paper says legislation would be ''exceedingly difficult''. But Sandy Grey, who runs the Timeshare Consumers Association, said this week he believed the Government would back more control for owners. ''If a club manages the money it knows where it is coming from and going to and the true costs of running the business. Some developers are disinclined to disclose the full information.''

The DTI paper says recent developments in the selling of timeshare showed a trend for ''a rogue element who are spoiling the image of the industry to look for and exploit any loopholes in the law''.

Problem areas included timeshare rights held through ownership of shares in a company, resales at depressed values, holiday club schemes, timeshares in boats, and

35-month schemes designed to avoid the minimum three-year period covered by the law.

Avoiding a statutory

cooling-off period enabled salesmen to lure people to sales presentations on the promise of having won a competition or a holiday, and persuade them to part with deposits of #2500 or more.

''The use of misleading enticements are of additional concern to the Government,'' the paper says.

The Government is also concerned about the growing market in timeshare resales, typically at far lower prices than new timeshares.

The paper says: ''The

'buy-sell con' is a scam whereby unscrupulous timeshare sellers convince consumers, who already have a timeshare, to buy a better one on the promise that the existing timeshare can be sold to pay for the new one. The offer concerning the sale of the existing timeshare often involves an artificially high valuation . . . the sale of the existing timeshare never materialises, and the victim is left with the expense of owning two timeshares.''

Birl said it had no reason to think it was the company referred to in the DTI paper. It had taken one action against the Abbotts as they had refused to pay their refurbishment levy and the second for #50,000 because Birl contended they had published falsehoods and had encouraged the committees at its resorts to breach management contracts.

The Forest Hills committee like others had three owners' representatives and two managers, and although Fraser had been unanimously voted in as chairman, ''we see this as a temporary situation''.

On owners' control, Birl said: ''At all our resorts there is already substantial control over financial operations.

The management fees for

each resort are only set after the annual budget has been approved by the owners' committee.''