A couple fear they have lost everything after their escape to a dream home on the east coast turned into a nightmare.
Angela Dalton and Jeremy Evans, of Newsome , sold their house in Huddersfield last year and paid £82,000 for a two-bedroom wooden lodge at the Sand le Mere holiday village in Tunstall, near Withernsea.
But just six weeks later Angela, 56, got the shock news that she was suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, prompting them to decide to return to Kirklees to be with family and friends. Now they are back in Huddersfield with no money, no home and very little hope.
They are set to make a whopping £44,500 loss on the lodge after sales staff offered just £37,500 to buy it back. Having sunk savings, pension funds and a bank loan into the project they are now facing an uncertain future. Currently they are staying in a bungalow owned by Jeremy’s 79-year-old mother.
“We have lost everything that we have worked for all our lives,” said Angela, who was medically retired from the NHS after 22 years.
She is now urging other people to take heed of her situation and realise what could happen.
Angela claims she and Jeremy, now her full-time carer, initially inquired about buying a friend’s home on the site but that sales staff talked them out of it in favour of the newer luxury lodge, which cost £47,000 more. To afford it they took out a bank loan.
“They told us it was falling to bits and said ‘We’ll look after you’, so we trusted them and bought the lodge instead. When we asked if they wanted to buy it back they offered us £37,500 and said ‘take it or leave it.’They gave us the hard sell. I am quite disgusted with myself for listening to it.
“What they have done is not legally wrong but it is ethically wrong and we could end up on the street,” she said. “We still owe £35,000 to the bank. We are not the only ones experiencing this.
“We have to accept we have lost our money, but I will try until I reach my grave to stop this happening to somebody else.”
Sand le Mere contains an estimated 300 caravans and lodges. It is owned by Bridge Leisure Management Ltd and is popular with people from the Huddersfield area.
Management at Sand le Mere were asked to comment but did not respond.
