Couple’s £1m bill as home COLLAPSES after botched basement conversion – and they’re still paying £700-a-month mortgage
A COUPLE are facing a £1million bill after a botched conversion caused their home to collapse - and they still have to pay the £700-a-month mortgage.
Jacquie Hale, now 44, was eight months pregnant when she and Ed Goldswain, now 45, fled their two-bed flat in Barnet, North London, in 2012.
Jacquie said: "It was a horrific time. We had a new baby, we were in temporary accommodation and having to wade through reams of paperwork.
"We were both pretty distraught and permanently exhausted."
£1MILLION BILL
The couple were engaged in 2011 when they bought the house and year a later they started making other improvements to ground floor of the two-bedroom Edwardian flat as their family was growing.
An upstairs neighbour owned the first floor.
Jacquie and Ed wanted to convert their basement into a two-storey family home and after finding who they thought was the perfect builder they got to work.
About three months into the massive project, eight-months-pregnant Jacquie and Ed noticed a crack in the wall that was only getting wider.
SPLIT IN HALF
The crack turned into a gash and the couple as well as the upstairs neighbour fled the house overnight.
When they returned the next day, they found the entire property suffered a structural collapse, basically splitting it in half.
Barnet Council declared the house a "dangerous" structure and ordered it had to be demolished, along with all of their possessions including family heirlooms and baby scans.
Jacquie, 44, and Ed, 45, were slapped with a £318,000 demolition bill while they were living in temporary rented accommodation.
We were both pretty distraught and permanently exhausted.
Jacquie
The couple's story serves as warning to anyone considering an "iceberg" conversion, which is giving a property a pricey basement extension.
This type of building is something that is being seen more and more in high-end neighbourhoods like Chelsea and Belgravia as the mega-rich seek to have more living space by digging underground.
The couple now live in another mortgaged property in Harpenden, Herts. with their two sons Ernie, six, and George, five.
The builder they hired was ordered by a judge to pay the couple £290,000 but they have yet to see any of it.
He had dissolved his company and set up a new one, but has since ceased trading.