No mortgage for jobless boozehound millionaire

A BRITISH factory worker who won £1-million (more than R17-million) on the lottery discovered he was unable to get a mortgage after returning from a round-the-world pub crawl, during which he spent £72 000 on alcohol.

“In effect I am a millionaire, but I can’t even get a mortgage,” said Matt Myles, 28, who is unmarried. He quit his job and took his brother Pete, 27, and several friends on a sevenmonth “bender” before returning with plans to start a property portfolio.

However, banks scuppered his dreams because he doesn’t have a steady income.

After his Euromillions win on April 8, Myles, a former electrical engineer, set off on the booze-drenched trip.

The group partied in Indonesia and the US before flying to Brazil for the World Cup in June.

It was then on to Thailand, Ibiza, Spain and Italy.

Myles said this week: “We tried to do a night on, a night off the sauce, but most of the time it was night on, night on.

“I would say America was my favourite, purely because it is English speaking.”

For his birthday in September, Myles briefly returned to his home town, Hereford, for a Great Gatsby-themed party for 350 people, complete with Champagne showers.

The group finally flew home to Britain for good a week ago.

“We had an amazing time but we had to come home and grow up. We couldn’t carry on much longer without doing ourselves serious damage.”

As well as his bar bill, he has spent £45 000 on a Porsche and £9 000 on an Omega watch.

“I was going to buy a load of houses with mortgages and then get people in to rent them to pay for the mortgage,” he said. Myles is now paying cash for a £150 000 house in Hereford instead. — © The Daily Telegraph, London