FantaSea Class Action Says Timeshare Offers are Fraudulent

UPDATE: The fantaSea Resorts class action lawsuit was terminated in a summary judgement on behalf of the defendants on August 30, 2018. 

FantaSea Resorts violates multiple New Jersey consumer protection laws in the way it manipulates the sales of its resort timeshares, according to a new class action lawsuit.

The plaintiffs, Gaetano Tirri and married couple Kelly Taylor and Brian Kalmus, say that when they executed the deed of transfer to purchase their timeshares, FantaSea made them simultaneously execute a deed in lieu of foreclosure in favor of FantaSea. By doing so, plaintiffs say, FantaSea makes purchasers immediately give up the timeshare rights they just paid for.

Kalmus and Taylor claim that in December 2012 FantaSea induced them to upgrade their existing timeshare via manipulative sales tactics. They were allegedly told their existing timeshare in the LaSammana resort was “worthless,” even though they had just paid $5,295 for it the previous April. FantaSea told them they had missed an opportunity to upgrade that timeshare to a Flagship Resort property, but the company offered to make a “one-time exception” for them, according to the plaintiffs.

The couple says they agreed to the upgrade, at a cost of more than $15,000. They executed both the deed of transfer and the deed in lieu of foreclosure FantaSea required of them – transferring their just-purchased interest back to FantaSea. They then made payments on the mortgage until May 2015, when they claim FantaSea subsequently sent them to collections.

Tirri says he purchased his own timeshare from FantaSea in June 2013, also signing both a deed of transfer and a deed in lieu of foreclosure. When he defaulted on his mortgage payment sometime around November 2014, he says he received a notice from FantaSea threatening him with a lawsuit and a sheriff’s sale of the property. Tirri says the notice did not state the amount of money required to cure his default, whom to pay, or notice of the opportunity to cure.

All three plaintiffs note that FantaSea also required them to submit to an “Escrow Agreement” that allowed all their deposit money, closing costs, and mortgage payments to be held in escrow by FantaSea’s own in-house attorney.

The plaintiffs now allege these actions, and others, directed at the rest of the purported Class are violations of several New Jersey consumer protection statutes, namely the Consumer Fraud Act, the Truth in Consumer Contract, Warranty, and Notice Act, and the Fair Foreclosure Act.

The three plaintiffs are seeking to represent all persons whom FantaSea required to execute a deed in lieu of foreclosure at the same time they purchased a New Jersey timeshare from the defendants. They also want to represent a subclass of plaintiffs to whom the defendants sent an allegedly defective Notice of Intention to Foreclose.

Tirri, Kalmus and Taylor are seeking a damage award to cover their own losses plus triple damages, costs and attorneys’ fees available under New Jersey consumer protection laws.

The plaintiffs are represented by David J. DiSabato of DiSabato & Bouckenooghe LLC and by Andrew Meyer, Patrick Kennedy and Rick D. Kennedy of Finn Law Group, PA.

The FantaSea Fraudulent Timeshare Class Action Lawsuit is Tirri, et al. v. Flagship Resort Development Corp., et al., Case No. 3:16-CV-01771 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, Camden Division.