Family offering £280k house in £1 raffle throw in £42k Volvo SUV as well after failing to sell home during pandemic

A FAMILY are flogging raffle tickets to their four-bedroom home for just £1 a pop - because they can’t sell the property due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The winner will be given the keys to the house, which was built just two years ago and is worth around £280,000 - and they'll also get a £42,000 SUV thrown in too.

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The house comes complete with a 75 sq ft garden and garage.

Owner Dale Tate, 36 is also throwing in his own car - a 4x4 Volvo XC90 Hybrid - in a bid to woo would-be ticket-buyers.

Dale lives at the property in Ossett, West Yorks, wife Katherine and their four kids, but hasn't been able to sell his property during the pandemic.

And he said he quickly became fed up with estate agents.

“There’s only been one viewing in the past month, so I thought it wasn’t looking good," he said,

“You’ve got to think outside the box with these things.”

Competitors can buy as many of the 400,000 tickets as they want.

The Tate family had hoped for a quick sale as they plan to move to Australia at the end of the year.

Dale, who works as an engineer, said: "People haven't got anything to lose really - it's only £1.

"Your odds of winning the lottery are about 45 million to one, but this is 400,000 to one if you spend £1.

“People spend more than that on a lottery ticket and have basically no chance of winning - but this is genuine.

"If all the tickets sell, then somebody has to win it.

“It will make somebody's day, that's for sure.

"We will get the asking price for it, once the fees are taken out, including stamp duty and legal fees.

"It's not like we're over-inflating the price and trying to make a huge profit on it.

“We're not doing that at all."

The family plan on relocating Down Under later in 2020 to be closer to Katherine’s family.

The home is listed with raffle site Raffall.com

Stelios Kounou, who owns the site, said: "When I saw a spike in ticket sales, I looked to see why and saw that it was a family home.

"I recognised the user's name as I'd spoken to him before after he successfully sold thousands of pounds worth of tools through us and the winner only paid £10.

"I've seen a lot of house competitions in UK fail before because they don't sell enough tickets but what's good about this one is there is no ulterior motive.

"Because Dale is moving abroad, he has to sell him home.";

House raffles aren't always a success - although in 2017, Dunstan Low raised almost £1million raffling his six-bedroom Lancashire manor house worth £845,000.

But in January 2019, a Dorset woman who “won” a £3million mega-house received only £110,000 after the millionaire couple behind the raffle decided to keep their home and pocket £500,000.