How a beautiful £800,000 home could be yours for £5 (...plus a huge slice of luck!)
A COUPLE who failed to find a buyer for the mansion they previously had on the market for £825,000 have hit on a novel way to sell it – a £5-a-ticket raffle.
Shamus and Angie Fitzsimons are offering people the chance to live in luxury by winning their impressive seven-bedroom country home.
Dullatur House, near Cumbernauld, Lanarkshire, comes with a swimming pool and an acre of land. The property, which is now valued at £625,000, has been on the market for several months.
Built in 1745, it has been used as a family home and as rented accommodation, appearing on websites including Airbnb.
It boasts a sauna, six bathrooms, original period features, three reception rooms and a billiards room.
Father-of-two Mr Fitzsimons, 46, hopes to sell 250,000 tickets at £5 each to cover the sale, including fees. If he hits his target he could net £1.25million.
Mr Fitzsimons said he and his web designer wife decided to raffle the property after he recently lost his job. He added: ‘It was only a couple of weeks ago we came up with the idea. Hopefully, it will do something quite special for someone.
‘The previous Friday the company I worked for, having left my previous job to go to them four months ago, decided to pull the plug. The house is our pride and joy but desperate times call for desperate measures. A guy down South did something similar and he has been quite successful.’
He added: ‘It’s a special place, so hopefully we can pass it on to someone to walk straight into and just think, “Wow”.’
Mr Fitzsimons, who has two teenage daughters, said the property would remain fully furnished for the new owners, with contents valued at an estimated £30,000-£40,000.
The couple plan to run the competition, which has already gone viral on social media, until just before Christmas, when the winner will be announced.
Mr Fitzsimons added: ‘When we bought Dullatur House it needed a lot of modernisation but that didn’t scare us off.
‘We upgraded, restored and painted away merrily and turned it into a great family home.
‘Life presented our family with various personal challenges along the way, then I lost my job and, unable to find another suitable one, I faced the reality of being unable to pay the mortgage.
‘I have tried to sell the house through the traditional route using estate agents for the past 12 months, without success.
‘Lots of people love the house, but we are fishing in a very small pool of people who can actually afford to buy it. Instead of the banks flexing their muscles and repossessing this lovely home we have decided to take matters into our own hands.
‘We found other people running a similar competition – it worked for them, so why not us?’
According to the listing for Dullatur House on the Airbnb website, the highly rated country mansion can sleep 14 guests and has a number of lounges.
The first floor of the west-wing has a double bedroom with ensuite and views over the front garden. A small landing gives access to the billiards room which includes a full size snooker table and a bathroom area The house is set in private grounds, with a walled garden and 250-year-old monkey puzzle tree.
Mr Fitzsimons added: ‘That amount of tickets will allow us to cover the costs of the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, legal fees, and to complete any last minute jobs to ensure the house is perfect for its next owner.
‘It would certainly be some Christmas present.’
The deadline for entering the draw is December 18 at 12pm.
If they sell all of the raffle tickets by December 9, the couple plan to donate £25,000 to the charity Macmillan Cancer Support.
‘The house is our pride and joy’