FactualHomes From Hell: Dream Developments
Building your own house from scratch can give you the ultimate dream property and 100,000 new homes were built in Britain last year.
But what happens when you invest your life savings in a project which doesn’t result in a home for you to live in? Homes From Hell: Dream Developments meets the couple who invested over £400,000 on their ideal home in a woodland setting, only to discover a technical fault left it damp and rotting.
Another couple tell the devastating story of how they bought their first home on a development which has now turned into a ghost estate. And one man explains how his dream retirement home in Portugal has cost him his relationship and his life-savings.
In 1992 Alan Garrett sold his successful business to build a luxury home for him and his wife Alison and a further home for their family on a four-acre woodland plot in Bath. The couple spent £38,000 on the plot and £415,000 building the two cutting-edge homes, but, as soon as the development was complete they noticed a huge damp problem.
Alan and Alison show Homes From Hell around their properties and reveal the condensation problem that has caused the frame of the timber buildings to rot. Condensation gathers on the glass roofs and windows of the buildings and drips down onto the floors. Alison explains that for the last nine years she has been wiping the windows, only for the water to form again within 30 minutes.
The architects responsible for the development couldn’t sort the condensation out so Alan called in a surveyor who said the problem lay with the inadequate ventilation system which had left the walls filled with water. He told Alan that the whole timber frames needed replacing.
The couple decided to sue the architects but it proved very costly and the architects had minimal insurance, so Alan and Alison received only £130,000. Their home was worthless and they faced repairing the properties themselves.
Alan says: “This site should be worth a million pounds. It is the grand design million pound house. In actual fact, we’d probably make more money from the site selling it as an undeveloped site than actually trying to sell it with these buildings on it, so, we’d be better of having a big bonfire and selling the site clear. And that is gutting, that is not a dream, that is a disaster.”
For the last three years the couple have worked to repair the smallest building themselves and Homes From Hell is there as the scaffolding finally comes down.
Seadna and Mairead Billings tell the series how they took out a 100 per cent mortgage of £175,000 to buy their dream three-bedroom new-build home near Belfast.
The couple moved in in 2008 and soon discovered the surrounding houses were all empty. The estate was meant to have 70 houses on it, but work had stopped due to the property crash, many homes were not finished and only a small amount had been sold.
The estate became a ‘ghost-estate’, one of around 621 in existence in Ireland.
Seadna and Mairead tell the programme how they were living alone in their street and the derelict houses around them were soon under-siege from vandals and rodents.
As he peers through the windows on the abandoned estate, Seadna says: “Fireplaces are ripped off and skirting boards taken up and doors taken off and you can just see the vandalism and theft that’s gone on around the place…it just gradually got worse and worked it’s way down closer and closer to us…we were worried, if we were going to be sitting in the living room, if there was going to be a brick come through the window.”
Eventually the couple decided to leave the property and move into a rented house. Now, after being left paying rent and a mortgage, they have decided to declare themselves bankrupt and have the house re-possessed. In emotional scenes Seadna and Mairead show Homes From Hell the home they had hoped to raise a family in which is now derelict and boarded up.
Former concert pianist David Heft from Boston, Lincolnshire, tells Homes From Hell how he invested his life savings in building a luxury villa in Portugal for him and his partner to enjoy their retirement. The programme features footage of the building getting underway, which David shot himself. He agreed to pay 209,000 euros in four instalments and was told that the land and the property would be signed over to him once the developer received the final payment and the villa was complete.
But after a third instalment and a total of 130,000 euros the work stopped and the builders never returned. David is now left with half finished building which he can’t even sell because it is not in his name. Homes From Hell flies out to Portugal with David to see the property and he chokes back tears as he reveals how the stress of the situation has now cost him his relationship and all his money.
He says: “As a result of this house, I have lost a vast amount of money, I’ve lost my partner, I’ve lost my dream that I cherished. I’ve lost the wonderful retirement I was so looking to having, I’ve lost it all.”
And, Homes From Hell meets the couple who are being forced to demolish their luxury Cypriot holiday home after a court ruling.
David and Linda Orams bought their home in Northern Cyprus in 2002 from a Turkish-Cypriot, but, just a year after moving in they received a court summons from a Greek-Cypriot living in the south of the island who claimed the land the house was built on was his, and he wanted it back.
The Greek-Cypriots fled Northern Cyprus in 1974, when the Turks invaded, but the claimant said the piece of land was still his.
After several court hearings in Cyprus and England, the couple have now been ordered to tear the house down and return the land to the original owner. They have also been asked to pay £300 a month rent for the last seven years they have lived there.
Homes From Hell contacted the owner of the land who said that people buying property in Northern Cyprus should understand that it is like buying goods from the back of a lorry, because they might belong to someone else.
Linda says: “We’re not going to let it ruin our lives. Maybe we’re in shock, I don’t know, but we’ll have to wait and see how we feel when it’s all over.”
Homes From Hell: Dream Developments is produced and directed by Ruth Swarbrick. The executive producer is Sarah Caplin.
Last edited: Monday, 28 June 2010
