"London's first FRACTIONAL OWNERSHIP luxury property to offer an intelligent accommodation option for those who require a flexible cost and time effective alternative to second home ownership in central London. Membership offers convenient access to a selection of one and two bedroomed apartments in Mayfair at a fraction of the cost of whole ownership………offering optimum flexibility and convenience, membership gives you the right to use your apartment for a select number of nights each year until 2050 - enjoy your apartment for a night, two nights, a week or longer."
“each of the 49 residences is an individual one or two bedroom apartment, yet the entire property is run like a five star hotel to international service levels but with the comfort and privacy of a boutique hotel.”
“By execution of this Agreement and full payment of the Purchase Price, Purchaser acquires personal contractual rights and obligations relating to the use of the Residences and the enjoyment of the Additional Plan Benefits during the term of the Plan.”
“In exchange for the Purchase Price: (i) Pursuant to the Lease Seller hereby grants the Purchaser access to the occupancy rights over the Residences described in III(B). Seller also grants to Purchaser access (as available) to the Resale Programme and Rental Programme described respectively in Sections III(E) and (F).
“Throughout the duration of the Plan (barring periods required for capital repairs or maintenance) the Residences shall be operational with respect to electricity, water and telephone connections, furnished and ready for occupancy. The furnishings and fittings at the Residences shall be replaced over time by Manager in line with Grand Residences by Marriot standards and the changing needs of the Members and the Residence.”
“Member States may apply further exclusions to the scope of the exemption referred to in point (l) of paragraph 1.”
“1. The grant of any interest in or right over land or of any licence to occupy land, or, in relation to land in Scotland, any personal right to call for or be granted any such interest or right…”
“other than – (d) the provision in an hotel, inn, boarding house or similar establishment of sleeping accommodation or of accommodation in rooms which are provided in conjunction with sleeping accommodation or for the purpose of a supply of catering, or (e) the grant of any interest in, right over or licence to occupy holiday accommodation…”
“does not include a grant in respect of a building or part which is not a new building of – (a) the fee simple, or (b) a tenancy, lease or licence to the extent that the grant is made for a consideration in the form of a premium.”
“includes any accommodation in a building, hut (including a beach hut or chalet), caravan, houseboat or tent which is advertised or held out as holiday accommodation or as suitable for holiday or leisure use, but excludes any accommodation within paragraph (d).”
“(i) temporary furnished sleeping accommodation, (ii) occupation by a transient resident who is away from home for one reason or another, and (iii) some related service, whether it simply be a change of bedding from time to time or minimal cleaning on change of occupant or a more extensive range of housekeeping and other services.”
“conferring on the person concerned, for an agreed period and for payments, the right to occupy property as if that person were the owner and to exclude any other person from enjoyment of such a right.”
“The actual period of the letting is thus not, of itself, the decisive factor in determining whether a contract is one for the letting of immovable property under Community law, even if the fact that accommodation is provided for a brief period only may constitute an appropriate basis for distinguishing the provision of hotel accommodation from the letting of dwelling accommodation ….”
“particularly where the other factors taken into account are plainly accessory in light of the part of the payment linked to the passage of time or pay for no service other than the simple making available of the property.”
“account should be taken of all the characteristics of the transaction and the circumstances in which it takes place. The decisive factor in this regard is the objective character of the transaction at issue, irrespective of how that transaction is classified by the parties.”
“a customer acquires “points rights” ultimately in order to obtain the right to temporarily use a holiday property. Therefore, in order to classify the transfer of such a usage right as a “letting” it is irrelevant that there is insufficient knowledge of the individual characteristics of the property concerned as, in any event, the conditions of use are known to the parties to the contract.”
“In order to identify the key features of a contract, however, we must go beyond an abstract or purely formal analysis. It is necessary to find the contract's economic purpose, that is to say, the precise way in which performance satisfies the interests of the parties. In other words, we must identify the element which the legal traditions of various European countries term the cause of the contract and understand as the economic purpose, calculated to realise the parties' respective interests, lying at the heart of the contract. In the case of a lease, as noted above, this consists in the transfer by one party to another of an exclusive right to enjoy immovable property for an agreed period .”
“it is in that context that the synallagmatic nature of the contract concluded between RCI Europe and each of its members must be taken into consideration. Even if the various stages of the RCI Weeks system are taken into account, the fact remains that, if there was no intention to exchange timeshare usage rights through the market created by RCI Europe, the enrolment and subscription fees would lack any point.”
“The enrolment and subscription fees are in fact paid by members in return for a service provided, or to be provided, by RCI Europe in order to facilitate the exchange of its members’ timeshare usage rights, rather than rental through a third party agency.”
“does not prevent the same criterion from being used for its assessment, namely the members’ ultimate intention when they pay for the services received ( RCI at [29]).”
“in cases where the service consists in providing hotel accommodation or a right to temporarily use a property, it is when the points are converted into specific services that the connection between the service supplied and the consideration paid by the customer is established, the consideration being constituted by points deriving from previously acquired rights.”
“all the relevant information concerning the chargeable event, namely the future delivery of goods or future performance of services, must already be known and therefore, in particular, the goods or services must be precisely identified. Therefore, payments on account of supplies of goods or services that have not yet been clearly identified cannot be subject to VAT ( BUPA Hospitals and Goldsborough Developments , paragraph 50).”
“whether [the Directive hotel exclusion] may be construed as meaning that what is defined in German law as the provision of short-term accommodation for guests constitutes, within the meaning of Community law, the provision of accommodation in sectors with a function similar to that of the hotel sector, thus being subject to VAT….”; and “whether it is compatible with [the Directive hotel exclusion] to draw a distinction between taxable transactions and transactions that are exempted on the basis of the duration of the accommodation, such exemption being reserved for those letting transactions that involve the conclusion of a letting agreement for more than six months, irrespective of the actual total duration of the le t.”
“that constitutes an appropriate criterion of distinction, since one of the ways in which hotel accommodation specifically differs from the letting of dwelling accommodation is the duration of the stay. In general, a stay in a hotel tends to be rather short and that in a rented flat fairly long.”
“the use of the criterion of the provision of short-term accommodation, being defined as less than six months, appears to be a reasonable means by which to ensure that the transactions of taxable persons whose business is similar to the essential function performed by a hotel, namely the provision of temporary accommodation on a commercial basis, are subject to tax.”
“may be construed as meaning that the provision of short-term accommodation for guests is taxable, as constituting the provision of accommodation in sectors with a function similar to that of the hotel sector. In that regard, the [Directive hotel exclusion] does not preclude taxation in respect of agreements concluded for a period of less than six months, if that duration is deemed to reflect the parties' intention. It is, however, for the national court to determine whether, in a case before it, certain factors (such as the automatic renewal of the letting agreement) suggest that the duration stated in the letting agreement does not reflect the parties’ true intention, in which case the actual total duration of the accommodation, rather than that specified in the letting agreement, would have to be taken into consideration.”
“In defining the classes of provision of accommodation which are to be taxed by derogation from the exemption for the leasing or letting of immovable property, in accordance with Article 13B(b)(1) of the Sixth Directive [now article 135(1)(l)], the Member States enjoy a margin of discretion. It is consequently a matter for the Member States, when transposing that provision, to introduce those criteria which seem to them appropriate in order to draw the distinction between taxable transactions and those which are not, that is the leasing and letting of immovable property.”
“when the customer converts his initially acquired rights into a right to temporarily use a property, the supply of services concerned constitutes a letting of immovable property within the meaning of Article 13B(b) of the Sixth Directive (now Article 135(1)(l) of Directive 2006/112). However, that provision does not prevent Member States from excluding that supply from exemption.”
“As regards the German provision, it is true that the short-term letting of residential property may not entail all of the additional supplies of goods and services, such as provision of meals and drinks, cleaning of rooms, provision of bed linen etc, normally provided in hotels. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that a taxable person offering, for example, short-term holiday lets of residential property fulfils essentially the same function as - and is in a competitive relationship with - a taxable person in the hotel sector. The essential distinction between such lettings and exempt lettings of residential property is the temporary nature of the accommodation. In any event, short-term lets are more likely to involve additional services such as provision of linen and cleaning of common parts of buildings or even of the accommodation itself (indeed a number of such services are provided by Mrs Blasi); moreover, they involve more active exploitation of the property than long-term lets in so far as greater supervision and management is required.”
“Unlike ordinary goods, land is not the result of a production process; moreover, buildings, once constructed may change hands many times during their life, often without being subject to further economic activity…Under the Sixth Directive the charge to VAT is therefore limited in principle to the supply of building land or of new buildings and the land on which they stand”