THE GENESIS OF THE LEGAL REGULATION OF THE TIMESHARE CONTRACT: A COMPARATIVE LEGAL ASPECT

Abstract

The article carries out a comparative legal analysis of the formation of the principles of regulation of the timeshare contract. It has been established that the prerequisites for the emergence of timeshare are the emergence after the Second World War of holiday camps according to the package system in Great Britain. It was revealed that in the modern sense, the concept of timeshare originated in Europe in the 60s of the last century in Switzerland, and later spread to other European countries. It has been proven that the first form of timeshare (also called “fixed week”) is one that provided that the consumer has the right to use an object (house, hotel room, etc.) at a resort in a certain week every year for the duration stipulated in the contract. It was found that since the 1970s, timeshare began to actively develop in the USA, initially in the form of “condominiums”. This approach provided for joint ownership in the house in fixed shares, which gave the right to several owners in turn to occupy the apartment every year for a certain time (or after a year), periodically during the same period of time. In the 1970s, timeshare received a new development in European resorts (in particular, in Spain, Scotland and other countries). In contrast to the package offers, a conceptually different approach was offered – guaranteed quality housing for recreation at a clearly defined time, which did not require the owner to pay for management and maintenance. It has been established that the further development of timeshare has been based since the 1990s on the principles of business consolidation with a pronounced dominance of large hotel companies, which offered timeshare with flexible and loyal packages of accommodation offers. At the level of the European Union, for the first time a directive aimed at protecting timeshare consumers was adopted back in 1994 – Directive 94/47/EC. At the moment, Directive 2008/122/ EC of the European Parliament and the Council of the EU is in force in the EU, which was adopted due to the development of timeshare and the appearance of new related products on the market, which required updated legal regulation and enhanced protection of consumer rights. The conducted research allowed us to distinguish the following four historical periods of timeshare development in Ukraine and other countries.