Man who won £3m Omaze mansion ‘demands payout’ after abandoning home – as it’s revealed most winners have SOLD prizes
A MAN who abandoned a £3million mansion has reportedly demanded a cash payout instead as it was revealed most winners of a prize draw have already sold their new homes.
Dad-of-five Glen Elmy walked away from his new “James Bond-style” coastal property in north Devon after just three days over fears it was crumbling into the sea.
He has since reportedly asked draw organisers Omaze for equivalent cash instead – and now it has been claimed many of the 14 winners so far have put their prize homes up for sale.
Foundry worker Mr Elmy, from Walsall in the West Midlands, won the-five bedroom Stealth House overlooking Combe Martin Bay in the Omaze Million Pound House Draw in October 2021.
But it was claimed this week that he moved out after just three days when he discovered the property was at risk of coastal erosion.
It remained unclear whether Mr Elmy was given a different prize after he didn’t move in.
Omaze’s terms and conditions say they can offer a draw winner a cash alternative or else another prize.
It has now been suggested only three of Omaze’s 14 raffle winners since the draws began in 2020 still live in the homes they won.
Ten have been sold and the other is being rented out to rich AirBNB customers, MailOnline reports.
Mr Elmy and his wife Debbie lived for 26 years beforehand in a Walsall home worth £230,000.
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 raising charity funds for the NSPCC’s Childline.
He said at the time of his win he was “totally gobsmacked”, adding: “he only thing we’ve ever won before was three pounds at a bingo night on holiday.
“We absolutely love the house – if I could have designed one from scratch, it would look just like this.
“It’s like something from a Bond film.”
But neighbours now say he “left after three days and that was the last we saw of him”.
One said: “There is all sorts of speculation that it can’t be insured because of how close it’s been built to the sea and on the cliff edge.
“There is a problem with coastal erosion all along the coast here. There are signs around the beach warning about falling rocks.”
‘UNABLE TO AFFORD THE UPKEEP’
Mr Elmy had been the fourth person in Britain to win one of Omaze’s charity draw homes.
The first was a £1million home in Cheshire in a campaign raising £250,000 for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Other draws included ones which have generated £1million for the British Heart Foundation and £500,000 for the Prince’s Trust.
But in Cornwall another Omaze winner put their new four-bedroom, four-bathroom £3million mansion up for sale just eight weeks on.
Uttam Parmer, 58, from Leicestershire, scooped the mansion near picturesque village Rock last August but listed it on the market that October.
He described it as “a fantastic house in a beautiful Cornish location” but said he and his wife Raki, 53, were unable to afford the upkeep and wanted to buy something smaller.
A more recent winner is said by locals to have put her new home in nearby Cornish village Bodinnick up for sale the day after taking possession.
June Smith, 74, won the £4.5million mansion in May this year and celebrated with a bottle of red wine.
She initially said she would keep the waterfront home “for a while”.
But she has since decided to sell, saying she wanted to “use the money to help all my children and grandchildren with the next chapter in their lives”.
Other Omaze homes which have since been put up for sale include a £2.5million clifftop property in Kingstown, near Deal in Kent.
It had been won by a West Midlands couple, Jade and her unnnamed partner, last autumn.
English Hollywood star Tom Hardy is said to have used the property as a holiday home before it was snapped up and raffled by Omaze.
Marilyn Pratt, 70, sold the £2.9million home in Fulham, west London, eight months after her Omaze win in April 2021 – saying she wanted to give financial help to her two daughters and grandchildren.
The Omaze mansion now being rented out to AirBNB visitors is £3million Post Knott Lodge in Bowness-on-Windermere in the Lake District, Cumbria.
It was won last April by NHS IT worker Catharine Cawardine, 59, of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands.
The six-bedroom, five-bathroom home is booked up for the next two months, with three-night midweek stays costing £7,000.
‘THE PERFECT PLACE TO LIVE’
A £2.7million converted 18th century farmhouse in nearby Crook, just outside Kendal, was won in January by 59-year-old widower Grant Carson, from Glasgow in Scotland.
The six-bedroom home was put up for sale in June.
Widower Ian Garrick, 58, scooped a £1million four-bedroom home in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, in 2020 then almost instantly sold it for £1.15million – and neighbours say it has since been sold again.
A luxury villa in Marbella in Spain went to a 57-year-old legal consultant named Mark last December – and within six months he sold to a wealthy German.
Meanwhile, parents-of-two Darren and Mandy Wordon from Bath in Somerset are said to have listed for sale the £2.5million property in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, which they won in 2021.
MailOnline also said 73-year-old Susan Havenhand never moved into her £3.5million modern mansion on the outskirts of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.
The grandmother from Taunton in Somerset won the six-bedroom Cotswolds home in June last year but it was sold in recent months, neighbours say.
But one person holding on to their £3million Omaze home is Arsenal fan Kevin Johnson, 34, because the Islington mansion in north London is near the Premier League football 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 44-year-old wife Dee had “no plans to move – not at the minute”, he added.
Also keeping hers is young mum-of-one Becca Pott, whose £10 ticket landed her a £3.85million mansion in Ascot, Berkshire, in January.
She said earlier this month she had decided to keep the mansion as she “loves her new life”.
Sun Online has approached Omaze for comment.