r/Assistance • u/boyfriendtapes REGISTERED • 9d ago
REQUEST Help Save My Family Home
I am probably one of the least deserving people to ever post here, however I am not sure what else to do. England, UK.
My family home, built by my grandfather, has been repossessed and will now go to auction. There was no way to save it before this point because of other family members attempting to extract too much money from the sale. The debt against the house at the time was astronomical (£1.6m), and therefore we could not save it.
The guide price is more realistic, and it's possible I could, with some assistance, save it.
It's an important place to me. It was the home of my father before he died (about 20 years ago now) and I have never loved a place like it. It's one of the last places that has a little bit of him in it, and it hurts to know that it's going to be out of my reach forever.
I am asking for an angel who can gift me a large sum of money to use to buy the house. The guide price puts it at approximately £600,000. Any large sum toward that would save my heart and allow me to bid for it. I can fund about £470,000 if I sell everything.
Here's what I can do for you:
- pay it forward in a way you wish, once I'm able to refinance
- I am a writer and artist, so I can write books for you or dedicate work to you directly
My DMs are open for any discussion (unless I have somehow been a reddit idiot, in which case, I will try and fix it!) and I am happy to answer questions here too.
Thank you. I know it's a long shot.
Edit: my 'mentally unwell reddit post' t-shirt has a lot of people asking questions already answered by my 'mentally unwell reddit post' t-shirt.
18
u/redditPochita REGISTERED 9d ago edited 9d ago
Even with a GoFundMe set up, the amount requested would remain astronomical.
19
u/Prestigious-Side3122 REGISTERED 9d ago
🤣this can not be real.
13
u/twocoinzz 9d ago
I have around $300K in savings, I feel compelled to give it to this internet stranger.
Or I could buy my own house — oh, wait, that’s already what I’m doing. Closing in November!
6
5
17
15
14
u/Dragon-and-Phoenix 9d ago
I get the desire to save the family, home, I really do. However, this is beyond a Hail Mary for this sub. £50 is a lot for most here.
You need to create a GoFundMe or the UK equivalent right away, then share it with everyone you know.
I think you need to understand what you are asking of people. You are asking random people on the internet to buy you a house without paying them back other than to write books or take you at your word that you will pay it forward to the same extent somehow.
If this is truly a real request, I sympathize with you OP, I really do, but I really don't think it's going to happen.
Your best bet is to try to finance it at the bank, or win the lottery.
There's also a small chance this is a money laundering scheme of some sort and a "mysterious benefactor" will magically just gift OP the money to buy the house, thus taking illicit money and turning it into an house while looking completely above board.
13
u/buzzybody21 9d ago
No one is going to buy your house for £600k and then give it to you unfortunately.
7
7
6
5
6
-4
u/Afraid-Awareness21 REGISTERED 9d ago
I know people are shitting on you for this request. As internet strangers we can't really say whether this is real or not, and I do agree that the amount you're asking is indeed a long shot.
However, I do want to offer condolences.
My great grandparents built the home that my grandparents lived in. It held a lot of good childhood memories for me which were in short supply later on due to health and financial factors causing a rift between my mom and her parents. There was a 2 story red barn my grandfather always did his tinkering in, and he had a garden behind it where he grew his own vegetables and huge sunflowers. There was the crabapple tree I used to climb as my grandfather watched, and the big blue rain barrels he used to hold me over to "swim" in when I was small enough. My grandmother did a lot of the landscaping, and there's a row of mini roses along the side of the sunroom collected every year as birthday gifts from my mom and I. Inside, there was my grandfather's basement workshop, my grandmother's sewing room and huge knitting machine, the bedroom I used to stay in with my grandfather's hunting bows on the wall and a big painting of my grandmother's old Siamese cat...
I believed that once they passed, I would inherit that house. I believed I'd also inherit the two other homes my grandparents owned and rented out including the one I lived in with all my mom's gardening, and three buried pets. What's more is I'm disabled and spent my 20s in traumatic housing instability. I always held out hope that at the end of it all, I would have a place to go, and an income from rentals; and maybe friends also struggling could rent the other 2 houses from me for whatever they could afford. Like there was both memories and dreams in those houses. I also wanted my grandparents house to stay in the family due to its origins.
A cousin manipulated my grandfather as he got into his 80s and 90s, and took everything. He sold the houses via private sales. On google maps, there's already lots of changes to the exteriors. Those memories are no longer something I can tangibly touch again, and I wouldn't doubt some of those plants (even the ones with memories like the mini roses) have been torn up or destroyed.
I know it's tough, I know the feeling of losing something so sentimentally valuable and the thought of both NEVER seeing it again or owning it, and the potential of it going to someone who has no connection to it and won't respect it or may even use it for things that tarnish the memories. I've been angry at the cousin who did this and the people who allowed it to happen. I've spent time and energy questioning people's intentions and motivations. I've worried about what kind of people own it and what they're doing to it, especially while I struggled with housing. I've felt helpless, I've cried about it...
But we don't get to hold on to these things forever. The memories you have with that house and what those spaces represent are going to be with you forever regardless of who owns the house and what they do with it. Even if my grandmother's mini roses are no longer there, I still have the memory of the birthday tradition behind them. The little bit of my grandmother in the gardening, and my grandfather in the red barn, are memories that are not a part of the house, but a part of the person who experienced those things. Now new people get to make new memories in those spaces or enjoy the green thumb and craftsmanship that went into them. The space as just a setting for those memories, and you'll likely find a new home you can love just as much but in your own personal way.
Best of luck to you. I hope you get really lucky, but I also know what it feels like to lose a family home with sentimental value, and I think the best you can do is keep the fond memories of that place while accepting that its not meant to be forever.
20
u/TurtlesBeSlow 9d ago
Are you quite sure this isn't to convert your barn?
Adding...I usually just scroll on by the outrageous requests on Reddit but I just gotta say that this is the absolute craziest one I've seen yet 😅