Homes From Hell

Seaside Fantasies

Living by the seaside appeals to many as an ideal home location. But what happens when a seaside dream turns into a nightmare?

Homes From Hell meets the couple living in a caravan after their hopes of a new life in Greece turned sour and the people whose homes are crumbling into the North Sea.

Plus, one couple reveal the moment they discovered someone else was living in their holiday apartment.

Bev and Nez Akar were living in Yorkshire when they bought a £40,000, three-bedroom apartment off-plan in Turkey. After getting the keys they spent four years having wonderful holidays before receiving a phone call from their neighbour informing them that someone was moving their things out.

Bev and Nez were supposed to receive the deeds to the property when it was completed, but they never got them. Homes From Hell takes a lawyer to meet the couple at the apartment block and she reveals that their contract isn’t valid but they do have a letter which proves that they have paid for the apartment. Bev and Nez have now written to the new owner to ask for compensation, but are still awaiting a reply.

Dog breeder Helena Turner tells the programme how she paid £230,000 for her dream home by the sea only to discover, after moving in, that the whole frame of the building was rotten and needed replacing. The house was so cold and damp that Helena had to move into her garage and has been living there for the last three years. Homes From Hell structural expert John Topp visits Helena and reveals the devastating news that the property needs to be pulled down and re-built.

Lynne Harrison and David Oliver paid 215,000 euros for a luxury villa with pool to be built for them on the Greek island of Rhodes. But, when they got an estate agent to look over the papers regarding the villa and she made the shocking discovery that the house had been built more than twice as big as it should have been and tells them they could now face fines of up to 30,000 euros a year for the additional parts of the villa.

But that isn’t the only problem with the house. John Topp flew to Rhodes to examine the property and discovered the six metre high wall holding up the garden is on the verge of collapse. He tells the couple: “It’s about as bad as an example of a modern retaining wall that you can get. It will definitely fall over, whether it falls over next week, next month or next year.”

When the couple wrote to the developer he said there was no danger of the wall falling over, but he did say that he would consider buying the villa back from them.

Homes From Hell visits David and Lynne who are now living in a caravan back in Britain. Lynne says: “All we want to do is forget we ever knew Greece and start a new life.”

The series also meets the couple whose home was left hanging over the edge of a cliff after the earth surrounding it was washed away by the tide.

Josephine and Colin Arnold tell Homes From Hell that when they bought their farmhouse near the sea in East Yorkshire in 1988 they had 30 metres of land between them and the coast – there are now just two.

They explain that in 1995 a huge storm took seven metres of their land and then in 2007 another storm left their home dangling over the edge of the cliff.

Colin says: “If you looked at the house there was nothing wrong with it at all until you opened the back door and there was a 20 foot drop.”

The couple are now living in a caravan on their remaining land and there are emotional scenes as they revisit the farmhouse. Josephine says: “I can see the way it was and the people who used to come and it’s too much. We have no future, we can’t plan for the future unless we know what the future is.”

Homes From Hell: Seaside Fantasies is produced and directed by Ruth Swarbrick. The executive producer is Sarah Caplin.

Last edited: Thursday, 8 July 2010