A MAN who left a £3million mansion reportedly asked for a cash payout instead as it was revealed most of the raffle winners had already sold their new homes.
Father-of-five Glen Elmy walked away from his new ‘James Bond’ style coastal property in North Devon after just three days for fear it would crumble into the sea.
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A £4.5 million waterfront villa in Cornwall was won but later sold by June SmithCredit: Omaze
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Mother-of-one Becca Pott has bought a £3.5m home in Ascot, BerkshireCredit: omaze
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Arsenal fan Kevin Johnson keeps his £3m townhouse in North LondonCredit: Unknown, clear with picture desk
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Uttam Parmar wants to sell the £3.5 million property he won in Cornwall
He has since reportedly asked Omaze draw organizers for the cash equivalent instead – and it is now claimed that many of the 14 winners so far have put their prize homes up for sale.
Foundry worker Mr Elmy, from Walsall, West Midlands, won a five-bedroom Stealth House overlooking Combe Martin Bay in the October 2021 Omaze Million Pound House draw.
But this week it was claimed he moved out after just three days when he discovered the property was under threat of coastal erosion.
It remained unclear whether Mr Elmy received a second prize after failing to move in.
Omaze’s terms and conditions state that they may offer a cash alternative or other prize to the draw winner.
It has now been suggested that only three of the 14 winners of Omaze’s prize draw since the 2020 draw began are still living in the homes they won.
Ten of them have been sold, and the other is being rented out to wealthy AirBNB clients, MailOnline reports.
Mr Elmy and his wife Debbie had previously lived in a £230,000 house in Walsall for 26 years.
Stealth House, within Exmoor National Park, offered stunning sea views, six bathrooms and an infinity pool.
Mr Elmy won it after spending £25 on a ticket in a TV draw to raise funds for the NSPCC’s Childline charity.
He said he was “absolutely stunned” at the time of his win, adding: “The only thing we’ve ever won before was three pounds on a holiday bingo night.
“We absolutely love the house – if I could design it from scratch, it would look exactly like this.
– It’s like something from a Bond movie.
But neighbors now say that “he left after three days and that’s when we last saw him”.
One said: “There’s all sorts of speculation that it can’t be secured because of how close it is to the sea and on the edge of the cliff.
“Here along the entire coast there is a problem with coastal erosion. There are signs around the beach warning of falling rocks.”
‘I CAN’T AFFORD TO MAINTENANCE’
Mr Elmy was the fourth person in Britain to win one of Omaze’s charity homes.
The first was a £1 million home in Cheshire in a campaign to raise £250,000 for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Other draws included those generating £1 million for the British Heart Foundation and £500,000 for the Prince’s Trust.
But in Cornwall, another Omaze winner has put his new four-bedroom, four-bathroom £3million mansion up for sale after just eight weeks.
Uttam Parmer, 58, from Leicestershire, bought the villa near the picturesque village of Rock last August but put it on the market in October.
He described it as a “fantastic house in a beautiful location in Cornwall”, but said he and his wife Raki, 53, could not afford the upkeep and wanted to buy something smaller.
Locals say the recent winner put her new home in the nearby Cornish village of Bodinnick up for sale the day after she took it over.
June Smith, 74, won the £4.5 million mansion in May this year and celebrated with a bottle of red wine.
At first, she said she would keep the waterfront at home “for a while.”
But after that she decided to sell, saying she wanted to “use the money to help all of my children and grandchildren in the next chapter of their lives.”
Other Omaha homes that have since been put up for sale include a £2.5m clifftop property in Kingstown, near Deal, Kent.
It was won by West Midlands couple Jade and her unnamed partner last autumn.
English Hollywood star Tom Hardy is said to have used the property as a holiday home before Omaze scooped it up and hauled it off.
Marilyn Pratt, 70, sold the £2.9m house in Fulham, west London, eight months after winning Omaze in April 2021 – saying she wanted to help her two daughters and grandchildren financially.
The Omaze villa now being rented out to AirBNB visitors is the £3 million Post Knott Lodge in Bowness-on-Windermere in the Lake District, Cumbria.
It was won last April by NHS IT worker Catharine Cawardine, 59, from Wolverhampton in the West Midlands.
The six-bedroom, five-bathroom house is booked for the next two months, with a three-night midweek stay costing £7,000.
‘THE PERFECT PLACE TO LIVE’
The £2.7 million converted 18th-century farmhouse in nearby Crook, outside Kendal, was snapped up in January by 59-year-old widower Grant Carson from Glasgow, Scotland.
The six-bedroom house was put up for sale in June.
Widower Ian Garrick, 58, bought the £1m four-bedroom house in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, in 2020, then almost immediately sold it for £1.15m – and neighbors say it has since been sold again.
The luxury villa in Marbella, Spain, belonged to 57-year-old legal adviser Marko last December – and within six months it was sold to a wealthy German.
Meanwhile, parents-of-two Darren and Mandy Wordon, from Bath, Somerset, have reportedly put up a £2.5m property in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, which they will snap up in 2021, for sale.
MailOnline also said that 73-year-old Susan Havenhand has never moved into her £3.5 million modern mansion on the outskirts of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
The grandmother, from Taunton, Somerset, won the six-bedroom house in the Cotswolds in June last year, but it has been sold in recent months, neighbors say.
But one person who is holding on to his £3m Omaze home is Arsenal fan Kevin Johnson, 34, as the Islington mansion in north London is close to the Premier League club’s Emirates Stadium.
Mr Johnson, a 34-year-old construction worker, called the four-bedroom semi-detached Victorian townhouse “the perfect place to live”.
He and his wife of 44 years, Dee, “have no plans to move — not at this point,” he added.
Young mother-of-one Becca Pott also kept hers, whose £10 note fetched her £3.85m mansion in Ascot, Berkshire, in January.
She said earlier this month that she decided to keep the villa because she “loves her new life”.
The Sun Online has approached Omaze for comment.
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Dad-of-five Glen Elmy has reportedly left behind the £3m Devon mansion he wonCredit: Jam Press
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Fear of coastal erosion reportedly turned him away from Stealth House Credit: Neil Hope
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The house perched on the cliffs offers stunning views, but there are fears it could topple into the seaCredit: Neil Hope
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Mr. Elmy initially welcomed the home like something out of a James Bond filmCredit: Jam Press
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Neighbors say the family hasn’t been seen there in two years since they won Credit: Jam Press
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Seaside villa overlooking Combe Martin Bay in North DevonCredit: Jam Press
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Mr Elmy is understood to have asked Omaze for a cash payment in lieu of a houseCredit: Neil Hope
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In October 2021, he was handed the keys to the five-bedroom property. Credit: Neil Hope
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Locals have suggested insurance issues on the clifftop home could be a concernCredit: Neil Hope
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There were reports of rocks crashing onto the beach below Credit: Neil Hope
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: newstars.edu.vn