British investors who bought holiday homes and time in St Lucia have been left paying bills for their dream apartments, even though the development has been closed.
The investors in Marlin Quay on the paradise Caribbean island claim they paid up to £40,000 for shares in holiday villas and apartments they cannot even visit. Some claim they are being forced to keep up maintenance payments to cover the upkeep of their unusable holiday homes, or risk losing ownership.
Angry investors have turned on British-born Gavin French, a former car salesman from Aldershot, who is behind the development, dubbing his flagship site ‘the Fawlty Towers of the Caribbean’.
French has already lost three legal cases brought by British investors in the St Lucia courts and been ordered to repay money. So far he has yet to pay out a penny.
Marlin Bay – closed in 2008 for redevelopment – is not French’s only venture on the island. He has launched three others – Cotton Bay, which has been completed, and Canes and L’Avant Mer, which are unfinished.
Last week he was at a holiday home exhibition in London selling apartments for a new hotel planned for the Cotton Bay site, which has further angered people who are still waiting to move into their new homes.
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His continued business has bewildered some of his earliest investors. Linda Lloyd-Jenkins’ husband Clive travelled to St Lucia many times as a captain with the Geest shipping line and the couple decided to spend £40,000 on a timeshare after meeting French.
It is a decision she bitterly regrets – Clive died in 2001 and Linda says she has been desperate to sell the timeshare. But she has been unable to do so because the site is still closed.
Linda, 67, says that until recently she was still being asked for maintenance payments and cannot afford to write off the investment. ‘It is a lot of money,’ she told The Mail on Sunday last week. ‘Gavin French is an objectionable man.’
Caribbean nightmare: A picture of Marlin Quay in St. LuciaOne woman who contacted this newspaper said that she bought a two-week timeshare in Marlin Quay in 1994. ‘In its heyday it was wonderful. But as time went on and no money was reinvested in Marlin Quay, the resort became more and more like Fawlty Towers, only worse,’ she says.
Businessman Terry Popely paid £10,000 for a timeshare in Marlin Quay 15 years ago but says the area went downhill rapidly once French became involved in other developments. ‘One year we came back and it was just a shambles – doors and windows were hanging off. It is just derelict now,’ he says. Popely has written off his investment but adds: ‘I feel desperately sorry for people who invested much more and lost everything. French is a charmer, but he just leaves a trail of destruction.’
Confronted by The Mail on Sunday last week, French admitted Marlin Quay had been a failure, but he blamed some of the investors for the disaster. He said: ‘The timeshares didn’t really work. Our mistake with Marlin Quay was to borrow money from the bank and they kind of took control of the situation.
‘Then the recession hit and people stopped paying the money they owed. But if those people had been paying their payments, we would have had the money. We could have sued everyone but we didn’t, although we probably should have done.
Tranquil: Petit Piton and Soufriere Bay in St. Lucia‘Most developers would have walked away but we didn’t. The bank stopped the project and the contractors were owed a lot of money.
‘People have been slagging me off all over the island, but we don’t want to get into a situation where we are suing everyone. We’re doing the right thing.’
French admitted he had lost at least three legal cases and been ordered to repay investors. But he said his money was tied up in his newest developments.
Last week, French insisted he was going to finish the Canes and L’Avant Mer developments and get people back into their timeshares on Marlin Quay, but admitted: ‘The timeshare owners have a genuine beef, but we haven’t asked people for maintenance.
‘And people have been able to use Cotton Bay instead, so we have looked after them. Some people have been loyal, they have stayed. People always look for someone to blame.’
He added: ‘I’m not out here just having a good time enjoying myself. I’ve remortgaged my house over here, I’ve borrowed money from my family, to keep everything going, because I believe it’s going to work. We’re on the verge of it all coming good, after four years.’
