SCOTTISH timeshare owners at one of the UK's prize resorts, run by industry leader Macdonald Hotels, have won the right to take a (pounds) 1.4m management contract away from Macdonald and award it to an owners' consortium.
In a series of extraordinary moves, Macdonald served interdicts on six owners at Loch Rannoch Highland Club, barring them from office, after the club's management committee earlier this year began
to consider switching the contract.
However, the Court of Sess-ion refused to uphold the interdicts, and also blocked Macdonald's plans to hold its own special meeting to rubber-stamp the renewal of the long-term contract which expires next month.
Instead, the court told Macdonald to hold a regular annual meeting of the club by last Friday at the latest, and give owners the chance to re-elect the committee in a vote supervised for the first time by the Electoral Reform Society.
On Friday the three committee members who had been served with interdicts were elected with an average 855 votes each - four times the usual turn-out. The new committee will consider the management contract next month.
In spite of the court's direct-ions, the address of the Electoral Reform Society did not appear on the proxy voting form, and many mailings were sent out without voting forms or reply envelopes, according to former committee members.
Interdicts had also been served on three long-serving former members of the committee, all retired, who stood down earlier this year in order to form Timeshare Management Services.
They claim TMS can run the resort for between half and two-thirds of the present (pounds) 1.4m, which includes a 15% factorial charge plus other fees.
Macdonald, meanwhile, has warned owners that if they lose the management contract they will bar leisure facilities, shared between the timeshare resort and the hotel on the same site, to timeshare owners who are their main customers.
John Davidson, of Linlithgow, a retired assistant head teacher who chaired the owners' committee until he stood down to help form TMS, said: ''We were going through a far-reaching refurbishment and money was spent unwisely. They lost control of the budget.''
The Herald reported in 1999 and 2000 how Barratt International Resorts (BIRL), then 50%-owned by Macdonald though now 100% owned, took up to 200 owners to court in Scotland for refusing to pay
disputed management fees at its four Scottish resorts.
Many owners were unhappy that full accounts were not available to enable them to scrutinise expenditure, and that the resorts were being used to cross-subsidise leisure facilities for the adjacent hotels.
A chairman's letter from Davidson, for mailing to members ahead of last year's annual meeting, was submitted to BIRL but not sent out. His 2001 letter was allegedy heavily edited by BIRL to remove all critical comments.
TMS says that ahead of the past five annual meetings at Loch Rannoch, 19 members' resolutions calling for changes were submitted to BIRL for meeting agendas, but only one had been allowed through for discussion.
Owners at other timeshare resorts, not owned by Macdonald, including Kilmelford, near Oban, and Aviemore, already run their own management company, letting contracts and saving on factorial fees.
Sandy Grey, director of the Timeshare Consumers Assoc-iation, said that for a company to take legal action against its owners was ''highly unusual'' while for owners to control their own resort was ''highly desirable''.
He added: ''We have been campaigning in Brussels, and MEPs agree in principle that at some stage in the development of a resort owners should be in full control.'' Loch Rannoch was created in 1975.
Macdonald Hotels declined to answer any questions.
Donald Macdonald, chief executive and soon to be executive chairman, told The
Herald 30 months ago: ''We have done a lot to the resorts in the midst of a lot of adversity. I believe we have brought in a lot of integrity and we will con-tinue going this route as humanely as we can.''
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