British couple raffle house for $5.40 a ticket after banks refuse mortgage

A British family are raffling their coastal house for £3 ($5.40) a ticket.

The owners, Declan Garrett, 38, and wife Leoni Webb, 35, have been forced to sell the property in Weston-super-Mare due to the soaring cost of their mortgage.

However, banks have knocked them back for a new loan, due to the size of their blended family: the couple have seven children.

Inflation and cost of living pressure has forced their hand, but the couple got crafty and developed a way to raise enough money for a new property that is big enough for their kids, who are approaching their teenage years.

For about the cost of an Aussie cup of coffee, they are giving house hunters the chance to score the keys to their bungalow.

The winner of their home will be drawn on October 26.

The family have launched an Instagram account – @wsmhouseraffle – to explain the terms and conditions of the raffle, answer questions, track the progress and show video tours of the property.

The couple, who launched the raffle through online platform Raffique on June 22, told The Sun they will need to sell about 100,000 tickets to raise the £300,000 ($541,942) they are aiming for.

The website for the raffle explains that if the target is not reached, the main prize becomes 75 per cent of the paid entries.

In an emotional post on June 21, Ms Webb explained that if she and her husband wanted to sell the house the traditional way, they would, because the property is in a popular location where houses sell in one to two weeks.

“Why on earth would be choose to open ourselves up to the criticism and absolute tolling that we have?” she said in a video to the raffle’s followers.

“The cost of living is absolutely ridiculous right now – we understand more than most. We have seven children who need feeding and clothing.

“My husband is a school teacher and I worked in behavioural education, so I also work within schools. Ordinarily we wouldn’t be able to afford a house. We were very, very lucky to buy a house when we did.

“As we are looking to move…so we decided to raffle off our house to give somebody the gift of owning a house.

“I really hope we can pull this off.”

Mr Garrett told The Sun the increasing cost of living has been a worry for the family.

“It was just proving impossible to go down the conventional route and the current volatility around interest rates and the economy really concerns us,” he said.

“Our fixed rate runs out next year so it compounds our concerns.

“The main problem with mortgages is that affordability checks suggest that no one with seven kids could afford any reasonable mortgage.”

Mortgages in Britain have been on the up since December last year.