THOUSANDS LOST AS RETIRED COUPLE ARE DUPED BY BELLANOCH PLOT SALE
A retired couple have lost thousands of pounds after learning that the “dream” plot they were attempting to buy at Bellanoch was at the centre of a planning row.
Cris Saunders, 70, and Robyn Rowe, 60, fantasised about staying in a camping pod on the site, while looking for somewhere permanent to retire.
But the pictures they saw online showing a levelled-out plot at Crinan Loch near Bellanoch Marina were out of date.
This unauthorised work was carried out without planning permission, making it the subject of enforcement action.
And the ground has since been filled back in, returning the land to its original gradient.
Argyll and Bute Council served an enforcement notice on the landowner in May last year.
Cameron MacInnes, from Fort William, was ordered to reinstate the ground to its original levels and condition. This included topsoil and vegetation. But when Cris and Robyn, of Camber in south-east England, saw Plot 1 Crinan Loch on the Rightmove website last month, it was advertised by Future Property Auctions as “professionally cleared and levelled”.
With a guide price of £10,000 for a “super sized freehold plot” measuring 967sqm, “excellent access from B8025” was promised.
The online description stated: “The site would lend itself perfectly for camping, glamping, motorhome parking, shipping container accommodation or huts/chalet style accommodation in one of Scotland’s most desirable tourist spots...
“Super investment opportunity with super sized site.”
Future Property Auctions were selling the plot using photographs of the site when it had been levelled-out, taken before the ground was reinstated.
Cris and Robyn agreed a price of £7,000, which would remove it from the following day’s auction.
In good faith they paid the £3,000 deposit, plus a £3,900 buyers admin
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