Press release —
ANFI ready to begin compensation payments following over 5 years of work by ECC and legal partners
Compensation wait over for thousands of mis-sold Anfi owners
Anfi del Mar
In 1992 arguably the most ambitious single-site timeshare project of all time opened for business. A hitherto undeveloped cove named Barranco de la Verga in the south of Gran Canaria was selected by Norwegian billionaire Bjørn Lyng as the future site of four record breaking developments that would change the world of timeshare.
Lyng passed away aged 81 in 2006. He lived long enough to see all of the Anfi del Mar phases complete construction and open for business. The sales operations continued long after, even as Anfi Emerald golf resort began development began in nearby Tauro village.
Around 35,000 Anfi timeshare memberships have been sold to date. Most of these contracts were written before 2007 with Anfi sales figures peaking at over £100 million that year. Over half of Anfi members are Brits, with Scandinavians coming a close second. Germans, Italians, French, East Europeans and Spanish were also targeted by the relentless Anfi sales and marketing machine.
Pressures from increased legislation and the financial crisis slowed business down dramatically from 2008 onwards. Anfi sales teams are still operating today but on a massively reduced level from their heyday.
Illegal contracts and compensation awards
In the opinion of some observers, the high octane Anfi sales operation may have been making too much money for the bosses to consider complying with new laws designed to protect timeshare consumers. Anfi, along with the majority of leading timeshare companies based in Spain, chose to ignore the legislation and as a result wrote thousands of illegal contracts post 1999. Presumably relying on the notoriously labyrinthine Spanish legal system to act as a barrier preventing lawsuits from mis-sold Brits who lived in another country, lacked knowledge of the law and spoke little Spanish.
Claims companies formed to handle the heavy lifting on behalf of those Anfi members seeking to sue over illegal contracts. The first victory was achieved by Norwegian Tove Grimsbo in 2016. The former Anfi owner was awarded €40,000 in compensation. The floodgates opened and within a few years Anfi had tens of millions of pounds worth of judgments against them.
Finally, like many other former Spanish timeshare powerhouses, Anfi Sales SL and Anfi Resorts SL were forced into insolvency and administration.
European Consumer Claims (ECC) and their legal partners spent years securing payment for their clients, finally reaching a settlement agreement with Anfi in 2024.
Anfi confirms payments
Despite the agreement being reached, client payments were far from automatic. For the next two years, continuous court actions, delays, adjournments and challenges meant that ECC had to stringently monitor the claims proceedings and liaise between their legal partners, Anfi, the Spanish courts and their understandably impatient clients.
Finally in March 2026 emails were sent to all Anfi claimants included in the liquidation to inform them that Anfi was ready to pay. The email thanked them for their patience and confirmed that they were about to pay the compensation money they had agreed to back in 2024.
The wait is finally over.
The first batch of payments is expected to reach claimants in the next few weeks. The rest will follow after. The payment process has begun.
Expert comment
Greg Wilson is CEO of European Consumer Claims and an expert on the history of the Anfi situation. "There has been nothing quick or easy about this journey," he tells us.
"Anfi know that previous sales operations often failed to protect the interests of their consumers. The courts ruled in favour of thousands of claimants and awarded over £10 million collectively to ECC claimants alone.
"An outside observer might have assumed that was the end of the matter, but here at ECC we know from long experience that no claim is complete until the money has been paid. As the saying goes: 'There's many a slip twixt cup and lip.' Or even more colloquially: 'It aint over til it's over'.
"What many claimants do not realise is that the more a timeshare company resists paying court ordered compensation, and the longer the legal process drags on to the inevitable conclusion of the resort paying, the more resources it costs us as a claims management company.
"The several years it has taken to reach this point with the Anfi claims have been frustrating for all involved. Luckily for our clients our contracts include all work required. Meaning that just because the Anfi claims took longer than most, there is no extra charge for our clients. ECC absorbs the cost."
"Fortunately most claims are a lot swifter than this."
If you believe you have been unfairly treated by a timeshare company, get in touch with Timeshare Advice Centre for free, confidential advice.
If you have lost money because of a holiday park or retirement community property purchase, Holiday Park Advice Centre and Retirement Property Advice Centre are ready to help.
Related links
- Greg Wilson reflects
- European Consumer Claims (ECC)
- Holiday Park Advice Centre
- Retirement Property Advice Centre
- Bjørn Lyng
- Canary Island timeshare giant ANFI under criminal investigation
- Discover Anfi
- How and why Spanish timeshare companies were able to openly disobey the law for decades
- Canary Island timeshare giant under criminal investigation
- Timeshare Advice Centre
- How long should a timeshare claim take?
- What does HSC's liquidation mean for Anfi membership or compensation claims?
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Relevant websites for this article
www.holidayparkadvicecentre.co.uk
www.americanconsumerclaims.com
www.timeshareadvicecentre.co.uk
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