GENERAL NEWS

LBCMA wishes you a Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year

March 16 2008
Spring Newsletter published.  If you piad your fees for 2007 and have not received your copy of the Newsletter, please let us know.

February 13 2008
Thank you  to all who have already sent in their membership payment for the year 2008.  Formal receipts will be sent out with the forthcoming Newsletter.

February 2 2008
A good meeting was held in Paris on Saturday 2 February with the lawyer from Lanzarote and representatives from the French group, APAF, to discuss progress in the court case. A newsletter is in process of preparation. and should be distributed within a couple of weeks.

December 21 2007
Renewal of annual Memberships are due on 1st January 2008 – you can print out a form HERE to renew your  membership.

December 20 2007
LBCMA and the French group (APAF) are holding a meeting with our lawyers early in February to get an update on the legal case in Lanzarote. Immediately following this meeting a Newsletter will be sent to all LBCMA members to keep them informed of progress in the case.

October 31 2007
House of Lords decide that use of credit cards overseas will continue to be protected under the Consumer Credit Act.

August 17 2007
Summer 2007 Newsletter sent out to all members - with an error on the AGM date which should read 6th May 2007. Apologies.

June 15 2007
The next Newsletter will be sent out in mid-July. We have a meeting with our Lanzarote lawyer to get an update on the legal action on 7 July and there is also a meeting in the European Parlaiment on 28 June - both matters which will be of interest to LBCMA members.

May 10 2007
Members of IVC receive letters stating that IVC will not be providing any holidays for their members after 1 July 2007.

April 6 2007
The 2007 Annual General Meeting will be on 6th May at 2pm.  Details are here .  Any Member wanting a lift to the meeting should send a message to the webmaster.

March 1 2007
TCA have recently  received a number of reports that IVC members cannot make contact with IVC.  If any IVC member has been able to contact them would they please let us know.

March 1 2007
The telephone "helpline" has been withdrawn to save costs but Members can contact LBCMA by Email here.

Jan 14 2007
Members Section now password protected.

International Vacation Club (IVC)
A number of members have received invoices from IVC - our guidance is here

A WIN AGAINST HALIFAX

We are pleased to say that one of our members took Halifax to the small claims court for a refund of her maintenance and special levy fee’s leading up to Feb. 2004 when LBC shut the doors. The judge found that section 75 was to be adhered to in her favour! - However Halifax are seeming to be very sneaky and not letting it be known that a precedent  has already been set in the courts, suggest if you tell them that you are aware, they may just cough up!

LAW SUIT AGAINST OUR CHAIRMAN - CHARLIE LANCASTER

Proceedings have now been issued against Charlie Lancaster for defamation of the character of Simon Gough in her report of the wind up meeting of LBC.

LETTER FROM LAWYERS

We are being asked a lot for a letter from our lawyers to confirm that LBC has indeed been “shut down” we will try to arrange for this, but as you can imagine with the criminal case about to be launched all guns are blazing towards that at the moment, so please bear with us.

KATHLEEN SCOTT

Many of you will be aware of this ladies case – if not in brief, she bought into LBC2 and at a later stage managed to gain a credit card refund, Interleisure and Shore canarias the marketing companies behind LBC 2, then decided to take Mrs Scott to court for breach of contract. Mrs Scott managed to gain legal aid, but twice during the case this was rescinded and her lawyers had to fight hard to get it re-instated. Finally a couple of weeks ago it went to court!  The case was really argued on the terms of contract law and was rather detailed and complex as apposed to any alleged fraud of LBC2 never being built. The judge is out on this at the moment in terms of a decision, but we would hope to hear shortly and post the verdict here.

POINTS OFFERES

Lastly of all we’ve seen some comments on the points offers that were put to our members, about two years ago we had two companies who offered us a way of our members buying back into timeshare “safely” and also at a much cheaper cost if they chose too, we were indeed as a committee offered two deals, sadly the companies at the time were not prepared to have both deals offered to our members, so we had to choose. The company chosen was offered to our members at the time.

We are upset to hear that someone has had difficulty in contacting that company and if they would care to e-mail the details to LBCMA, we would be more than happy to follow that up, as we are keen to know why there has been no response!

On that subject as well, we read that GVC and Sunterra have been mentioned as a potential to “buy into”. If our members so wished then we would be able to have the company put a deal together, that would enable to allow our members to buy points at a much cheaper price than currently available on the open market, perhaps you could give us some feedback on this????????????
 

POAs -

We have now collected, and sent to our Spanish lawyers, 250 PoAs. In addition, a further 100 have been sent from our European partners. Although this is more than we had anticipated,, the more weight that we can add, the better is our case. If you have not yet sent a PoA, we would encourage you to do so together with copies of any supporting evidence of your own experiences.

FRENCH ON BOARD FOR CRIMINAL CASE & OTHERS JOINING

 The French speaking world - France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg - are now fully on board through APAF. In addition to provideing PoAs for the criminbal case, 14 members have also taken out civil procedings against LBC,

To say the least we are delighted as this will be able to give the Judge of the criminal case a real European flavour for the victims involved.

VISIT TO LANZAROTE TO LAUNCH THE CASE IS BOOKED

Our Chairman, together with the UK lawyers, visited Lanzarote in October 2004 and held useful discussions with our Spanish lawyers to pave the way for submission of the criminal case to Madrid Courts.
 

IT’S NOT OT LATE FOR POA’S

Just a reminder that there is still time to submit your POA and be part of the criminal case, this is your moment! To be a part of the hopeful Justice!!!!!
 

LBCMA SUBS

You should by now have received reminders for renewal of your subscription for the coming year. We have managed to keep this at £30.00. Remember, this gives you a voice in the running of the organisation, full access to the website and regular newsletters to keep you updated.

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Update:- 13 July 2004
 

Has IVC GONE?

We have recently been tipped off that the IVC offices in Prague shut down over night, with all staff disappearing and all documents being shred. We have as yet been unable to confirm this, however we have had a number of complaints from IVC members that they are unable to get hold of any one in Prague to book their holidays!   Does two and two make four?    We are currently looking into this situation as to how IVC members will stand in terms of credit card refunds etc and will report back as soon as possible.

APOLOGIES FOR DELAYS

LBCMA would like to appologise for the lack of information it has provided members of late, some have assumed that this is because the criminal case is no longer happening - FAR FROM IT, it is because of it that we have been inundated work wise this end to get it launched - you should receive a letter by the end of July, bringing you all up to speed - please bear with us!      POA's we are delighted to report that we now have far more POA's than we anticipated, however we would still stress that the more we have the stronger the case! We would therefore ask all those who have not done one to do so now, this is our last chance for justice and indeed the best chance we've ever had, if you wish to know more, please e-mail us.
 

Chairman Charlie Lancaster

In potential law suit for œ100,000 plus costs for defamation of character on Simon Gough for report on the LBC wind up meeting, as it stands she has lodged a strong defence to the claims by Simon Gough - we will keep you informed!

Advise on Liabilities for POA's

We have now received full legal advise from both our UK lawyers and our Spanish lawyers with regard to individuals liabilities in completing a POA for the Criminal case, we are pleased to say that we feel they are quite minimal and this letter of advise will be included with the newsletter and again should be with you by the end of July

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Letter from the Chairman to a Member concerned about the implications of signing a Power of Attorney (PoA) - 5th April 2004

Dear Peter,

I understand your concern and yes your notary is correct in that you are entrusting a lot of power to the Spanish Lawyers.

I can however reassure you that you are not signing a blank cheque.

In Spain when a criminal case is taken in effect there is a ceiling as to what the liabilities can be and since it is criminal and not civil these are usually very low.

We have a meeting with the Spanish and UK lawyers just prior to the AGM, where we will be given in detail a report of the liabilities and it is LBCMA's full intention to inform members attending the AGM of these and then write to each individual who has completed a POA, outlining the same. We will then give a time period for any one who is not comfortable with any aspects to withdraw their POA.

Peter,  I can not express enough that we are running out of time and this in effect is the last chance.   I also can not express the work that goes into gathering so many POA's along with the evidence to construct them into a case that the judge will accept.  It was therefore felt that for the sake of speed it would be better to put the ground work in now, so that we are ready with everyone's' final agreement to lodge the case PDQ.

I hope you can understand the decisions we took and would like to reassure you along with many others that LBCMA take extremely seriously the safety of our members. Indeed it is our number one priority.

It is perhaps hard to place trust in people dealing with a subject that has already destroyed your trust in the past, but in essence Peter I am asking you and many others for that trust now.   I can only hope that by honouring us with it, we will prove in time that it was trust well placed.

My Kindest Regards
Charlie Lancaster