Advertising watchdog hits out at ‘win a castle’ raffle

● Owner criticised after ditching competition

An author who pledged to give away her £2.5 million Scottish castle in a raffle has been criticised by advertising watchdogs after the competition was scrapped.

Susan Devere, 57, launched the contest after repeated attempts to sell the home she has lived in for 16 years failed.

The property, near Auchencairn, Kirkcudbrightshire, has been valued at £1.5m to £2.5m and contains 17 bedrooms, three self-sufficient flats, a 20-seat cinema, drawing room, music room, games room, and an art studio.

Built in the 1880s, it also comes with five acres of land and views across the Solway Firth to England.

Tickets for the raffle were priced at just £5 and the winner was promised the castle with no strings attached including no mortgage, no stamp duty and no legal fees.

However, the ‘Win A Castle’ competition failed to generate enough ticket sales and the prize was changed to cash giveaways of £65,000, £7,000 and £5,000 which were handed out in June last year.

One person complained to the Advertising Standards Authority(asa) and claimed the promotion, which was launched on Facebook and a dedicated website, had been administered unfairly.

The ASA has now banned the promotion and said the winning entrant should have been awarded the castle or a cash sum matching its value.

Mrs Devere vowed to challenge the ruling.

She said: “It should have taken the ASA a heartbeat to look at our site and see that from the beginning everything was spelled out, including that a cash prize to the value of tickets would happen if enough entries were not received.

“There was nothing wrong with my promotion, I especially made it clear that if the target was not met that the money that came in from the entries would be used for prizes and charitable donations.”

In its ruling, the ASA said: “The promotion must not appear again in its current form. We told Win A Castle thattheymustensurethatthey awarded prizes as described in their ads or reasonable equivalents; for example cash to the same value.”

Mrs Devere, an author from London, hoped to sell 550,000 tickets and donate any extra cash to charity. The raffle raised £107,000, with £77,000 handed out as prizes and the rest used for administration and donations to charity.

She bought the house for £450,000 in 2003 and set about renovating it.