Spoon-bending sale: how to win a new one-bedroom flat near London for £5 — with a little help from Uri Geller

The magician is drawing the winner of a property raffle in the commuter town of Bracknell.
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Jess Denham24 July 2018

Magician Uri Geller is set to make one lucky punter’s home-owning dream come true by drawing the winner of a new property raffle.

The spoon-bending illusionist will be randomly selecting the new owner of a £210,000 one-bedroom flat in Bracknell, Berkshire, in November this year.

There is still time to enter the competition, run by developers Equinox Living, with unlimited entries costing just £5 a pop.

The 330sq ft flat is on the ground floor of Abbey House, a new block of 40 one- and two-bedroom apartments that is due for completion in August.

The contemporary home, aimed at first-time buyers, has been designed to maximise usable space.

The kitchen by Italian design company Arta Cucine features solid quartz worktops and a Bosch oven and dishwasher. The washing machine and dryer are kept in a separate utility room and there is a rain shower in the spacious bathroom.

Other highlights of the unfurnished apartment include the fully-fitted mirror wardrobes in the double bedroom, the secure video entrance system and the Hyperoptic broadband that is over 27 times faster than the average UK broadband.

Equinox Living will be covering stamp duty costs and paying legal fees up to £2,000. Bear in mind, however, that ground rent is estimated to be £300 per year and service charge £1,100 per year.

CAN YOU COMMUTE TO LONDON?

Modern Abbey House is found down a quiet street near Bracknell town centre, which is currently undergoing a £240 million regeneration project.

In the Home County of Berkshire, to the west of London, Bracknell is roughly halfway between Reading and Guildford, with direct trains to Waterloo taking an hour.

Open-plan: the 330sq ft flat in Bracknell is small but perfectly formed
Equinox Living

The raffle flat would be well-suited to young professionals looking for a commuter home or working in the local area, with Hewlett Packard, Honda, Panasonic and Vodafone among the big name companies based here.

HOW TO ENTER THE RAFFLE

Entries close at midday on 30 November. Geller, chosen to take part because “he is well-respected”, will draw the lucky winner that afternoon using audited random selection software.

The draw can be watched online here and the results will be emailed to all participants.

To be entered into the draw, you must be an adult UK resident and answer three simple questions correctly. You can enter as many times as you like for a fiver a ticket. You will be given one extra free ticket when you buy 10, three extra when you buy 20 and 10 extra when you buy 50.

Ten per cent of all profits will go to LandAid, a property industry charity that helps young homeless people.

Spatial solutions: the double bedroom features fully-fitted wardrobes
Equinox Living

“I wish everyone who enters good luck and can’t wait to introduce the winner,” said Geller. “It is exciting to be involved with this competition, which is the first of its kind for a new development.”

If not enough tickets sell to cover the flat’s value and associated costs, the developers will give away a cash prize equal to all funds raised through ticket sales, minus the set-up expenses.

WHY WOULD A SELLER OPT TO RAFFLE THEIR PROPERTY?

Raffling off property can lead to a “hassle-free” sale, with no chain or mortgage lenders to deal with, and in some cases help London sellers secure a better sale price in the current market.

Independent property advisor and commentator Ed Meads said: “You’ve only got to look around at the success of online gambling, bingo and lotteries. Anything that taps into that psyche is likely to yield them a better result than selling on the open market, because there’s quite a lot of uncertainty around at the moment with Brexit, the Budget and stamp duty.

“But, this is only going to be appealing when people are struggling to sell. In the current market it would probably work best on certain properties in London's Zone 1, 2 or 3. But once you get outside London and the South East, there’s a lack of stock and prices are going up so I can't see why you'd bother.”

Mead does caution that an unsuccessful raffle could put a negative dampener on a prize house. “If you don't shift your property in the raffle, it won't look like a very attractive option to potential buyers if you try and sell in future.”

IS IT LEGAL?

Gambling Commission rules say that anyone thinking of “raffling” a property must be sure their scheme counts as a competition rather than “a lottery”. Running an unauthorised lottery can lead to a year in jail and a £5,000 fine.

A lottery requires buying tickets and getting lucky. To comply with gambling rules, a property raffle must be a competition requiring some skill on the part of the entrant.

This is why all property raffles require entrants to answer a question as well as buy a ticket. The Gambling Commission may take a dim view of a question that is too easy.

Usually, there must also be an opportunity to enter for free, so most property raffles allow one free postal entry per person. If the question is deemed difficult enough, this is not necessary.

Sam Smith, a property solicitor at Streathers in Crouch End, warns that it would be very easy to set up a fraudulent raffle.

“We are having to run increasingly detailed ownership checks on properties as we have seen more and more cases of people fraudulently ‘selling’ properties that aren’t theirs. It would be even easier to set up a fraudulent online raffle.”

In addition, PayPal — which is used to process online payments, notably on the auction site eBay — has announced it will not allow any future property raffles to run payment through its platform due to the risk that the property is not accurately described, or that the draw is in some way unlawful.

HAVE THERE BEEN SUCCESSFUL PROPERTY RAFFLES?

Raffling property has become increasingly popular in the UK over the past year, as homeowners struggle to achieve sale prices as high as they want or need for their homes.

Still open: you can try and win this Huf Haus in Ringwood until 31 July

A finance worker from Warrington won a Georgian manor house near Preston having bought just £40-worth of tickets in the first successful property raffle last year.

A Maida Vale mansion, aBrixton flat and a riverfront Huf Haus are among the other properties currently available to win for a fraction of their sale price.

However, the owners of a luxurious house on the banks of the River Thames had to offer a cash prize after they failed to sell enough £25 raffle tickets to cover the value of the property.

The Gambling Commission has intervened in nine improperly run property raffles so far this year.