- Five have sold mansions, while seven have rented them out or put on market
Only three of the 15 winners of the luxury Omaze mansions still live in their ‘dream homes’, with many choosing to cash in on millions or rent them out to lucky tenants.
Earlier this week it was revealed that widow June Smith, 74, has put the luxury £4.5million Cornish mansion she won in a £25 raffle on the market so that she can help her children and grandchildren ‘with the next chapter in their lives’.
But the grandmother-of-six is not alone. Over the last three years, five winners have already sold their homes and seven others have rented them out or are in the process of trying to sell them.
Previous winners have complained in the past that the enormous mansions can be too lavish and too costly to maintain – or they are too far away from jobs, friends and family.
Becca Pott, 32, was on maternity leave after the birth of her first child and was living in a two-bedroom flat in Leyton, east London, when she spent £10 on the Omaze draw.
The finance analyst won a £3.5million five-bedroom house near Ascot, Berkshire, in February 2022, transforming her life. Ms Pott, who lives there with her husband Ben and their baby Ava, is one of the few to choose to actually stay in one of Omaze’s stunning homes.
Ms Pott told The Sunday Times: ‘We always knew we were going to move in and enjoy it for at least that first summer, just to experience living in a place like this as a family, but after a few weeks we realised we didn’t want to leave so decided we should keep it.’
She added: ‘We have a toddler, so having all the extra space and a beautiful garden for her to explore has been incredible. We love relaxing outside on the patio whilst preparing dinner in the kitchen. It all feels natural now and like it really is our family home.’
Ms Pott was also given an additional £20,000 to help with running costs – while she also rents out the charming mansion – which boasts a drawing room, a family orangery, a night kitchen and a hot tub – to film crews.
The other two winners to move into their incredible homes were in Wimbledon and Islington – two expensive areas of London.
Kevin Johnson, a 34-year-old carpenter moved straight into his £3million four-bedroom Islington home with his wife and four sons. It is a stone’s throw away from where he was renting a three-bed flat previously.
He also got £100,000 in cash to help him settle in – with the house mortgage free and with all stamp duty and legal fees covered.
After finding out he had won with a £50 entry, Mr Johnson said: ‘We’re still pinching ourselves, whatever we decide to do long term, this is going to give us so much security as a family, it’s truly life-changing for all of us.’
Uttam Parmar, 58, is another winner who has opted to hand the keys of his brand new mansion over to someone else. The operations manager from Ashby, Leicestershire, is selling his £3million house he won near Rock, in Cornwall.
Mr Parmar said that he could not afford to keep it despite winning £50,000 cash. He also felt like he did not fit into the popular celebrity haunt, where chefs Gordon Ramsay and Rick Stein have properties.
Marilyn Pratt sold her £3million house in Fulham, London, because she wanted to give her two daughters £1million each to buy their own homes. She also said that she wants to go on nice cruises with her husband, family holidays and ‘fancy lunches’ at exclusive hotels such as Claridge’s.
Widower Ian Garrick also decided to cash in on his £1million house in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire. The 58-year-old, from Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire, won the first Omaze prize in 2020. But he sold the house to buy a £500,000 home near to his old home and family.
NHS worker Catherine Carwardine, 60, won a stunning £3m six-bedroom house overlooking Lake Windermere – raising £1m for Alzheimer’s Research UK.
She and her husband Chris, both originally from Wolverhampton – have fostered children at their current five-bedroom house in Telford for the past five years. But they rent it out to holidaymakers to generate some extra income.
Widower Grant Carson from Glasgow won a beautiful £2.5m house in the Lake District, along with £100,000 spending money. He has not yet decided what to do with his home.
Omaze, which was founded in 2012, was originally set up to launch fundraising competitions in the US to meet high-profile names like George Clooney and Michelle Obama. Other extraordinary prizes included a Lamborghini blesses by Pope Francis and a Virgin Galactic ticket into space.
Matt Polhson, who set up the prize draw, said that he understands why people choose to sell their homes. He cited that winner June Smith had recently lost her husband and wanted to make a big impact for her children and grandchildren.
It remains to be seen whether she will be able to sell it as locals have joked that the buyer ‘will need money for curtains’ because ferry passengers can see ‘everything’ as they sail past.
The Omaze Million Pound House Draw costs £10 per ticket but entrants the winner only has 96 hours to claim their prize and agree to all the terms and conditions.
If you don’t respond in time you forfeit the property – as once happened to one winner who had bagged a cash prize in a previous draw.
Since launching in the UK in November 2020, Omaze has given more than £11m to some of the UK’s biggest charities, including the British Heart Foundation, the NSPCC, Great Ormond Street hospital, Dog’s Trust and Alzheimer’s Research UK.
- The property offers sprawling views of the Norfolk coast line and salt marshes
A stunning £4.5 million five-bed house with a four-bed guest cabin nestled in an idyllic spot boasting of coastal views is up for grabs – with the lucky person able to win the property for just £10.
The beautifully designed home, complete with a swimming pool and yoga space, boasts of views of the Blakeney salt marsh and the harbour in Norfolk.
It is the latest property to be listed as part of the Omaze Million Pound House Draw. The property comes mortgage free – with all stamp duty and legal fees covered, with the lucky winner also being handed £100,000 in cash.
If the victor decides to rent it out, local estate agents estimate the property could achieve a long term annual rental value of around £60,000.
The dream property has a main house with five-bedrooms, an additional guest cabin with another four-bedrooms and a standalone office. The sprawling home provides plenty of room for entertaining spaces.
The house showcases striking modern architecture that has been meticulously designed to celebrate the nearby coastline, through its use of floor to ceiling feature windows that perfectly frame the coastal views, which can also be admired from several balconies and terraces throughout the property.
The front of the home has a large landscaped decking area that links directly to the heart of the house – the open plan kitchen, living and dining area, complete with sliding glazed doors on each side.
When opened the doors create a seamless continuation of space from the swimming pool courtyard, through the house and onto an outside terrace and dining area that overlooks the North Norfolk coastline.
The lounge, set between the ground and first floor has a large framed view out to the North Sea, while the principal bedroom has twin dressing areas and bathrooms.
The first floor also has three further double bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms and a balcony.
A wellbeing area provides a steam room, yoga space and gym with ‘Technogym’ equipment including a Treadmill and Weights System accompanied by a Peloton exercise bike – while the cinema room has been built in the ‘Everyman’ mould with acoustic walls, doors and ceiling
The guest cabin – which is attached to the main house – gives friends and family their own private quarters with a further four double bedrooms with en-suite shower rooms and the principal bedroom providing fine views over to the village and prominent village church.
All rooms have direct access to the private and enclosed gardens, with a terraced entertaining area complete with kiln fireplace.
A heated swimming pool, with the south to south-west aspect providing the ideal setting for outside enjoyment.
There is also a raised decking and an outside kitchen area with steps down to paved areas that surround the house.
The property also has a stand-alone studio building – dubbed The Hub – at its southernmost point. This can be accessed through landscaped gardens of nepeta and tall grasses, with a wildlife pond, which leads to glazed doors into an open plan area, perfect for use as an office space.
With a sitting area, meeting area and desk space, this is the ideal work from home setup, complete with a kitchen, shower room and a further room that can be used for storage.
An expanse of lawn sweeps away from the house, with wildflower areas, tall grasses and clipped hedging providing horticultural form all year round. Within the grounds is a kitchen garden, ornamental pond and easily maintained private gardens.
The house is situated close to Blakeney – a quintessential coastal village, with pretty flint cottages lining narrow streets leading down to the charming quay.
The village has excellent pubs including The White Horse and Kings Arms, a thriving delicatessen, art galleries, The Moorings fish restaurant, the renowned Blakeney Hotel and the convenience of a village store.
The picturesque market town of Holt, just over four miles away, is renowned for its boutique shopping, Byford’s delicatessen, good restaurants, pubs and further specialist and everyday shopping.
There are also banking and transport facilities within the town and a host of schools nearby.
As well as making its Grand Prize winner a multi-millionaire – the Omaze Million Pound House Draw, Norfolk – will support the RNLI – raising crucial funds to help the charity continue its lifesaving work.
The RNLI’s volunteer lifeboat crews provide a 24-hour rescue service in the UK and Ireland, and their seasonal lifeguards look after people on busy beaches.
All of the training, kit and equipment RNLI’s lifesavers need is funded by generous donations. It’s with the support of the public that the charity continues to save lives at sea.
Omaze has guaranteed a minimum donation of £100,000 and has a target of at least £1,000,000.
The draw has been launched by BAFTA winning actress, wild swimmer and RNLI Ambassador, Joanna Scanlan, whose sister-in-law is a volunteer Deputy Launch Authority at RNLI Beaumaris on Anglesey, which means she is responsible for requesting the launch of their lifeboat.
Joanna said: ‘This fabulous house in Norfolk is a truly life changing prize for one lucky winner – but more importantly, the money and awareness raised through this innovative partnership with Omaze will help the RNLI continue its lifesaving work.
‘The RNLI has saved over 142,700 lives at sea since 1824 – and everyone who enters will be contributing towards the crucial training and equipment their lifesavers need to help people who find themselves in trouble in the water – and of course one lucky person is guaranteed to win this dream home too.’
James Oakes, Chief International Officer at Omaze, said: ‘We’re delighted to be partnering with the RNLI for our latest house draw in Norfolk. By offering this stunning property, along with £100,000 in cash, we’re giving people the chance to live mortgage and rent free for the rest of their life – as well as raising money for charities whilst introducing them to brand new audiences.
‘We’re incredibly proud that the Omaze community has already raised £15,400,000 for good causes across the UK.’
In addition to winning the Grand Prize house – people who enter by midnight on Sunday August 13 will be in with the chance to win an additional life changing £250,000 in cash.
Draw entries for the Omaze Million Pound House Draw, Norfolk are available now at www.omaze.co.uk. The draw closes on Bank Holiday Monday August 28 for online entries and Wednesday August 30 for postal entries.
For full terms and conditions, see www.omaze.co.uk. No purchase necessary to enter. Over 18s and UK residents only.
Charity property draws are bigger than ever with mouth-watering houses on offer for the lucky winner.
But what happens when the champagne has been drunk, the media have left and the new owners of a dream house are left with an enviable dilemma – to move, sell or rent out their amazing new mansion?
MailOnline spoke to several recent Omaze winners to see what happened next after they received the prize of a lifetime in the bimonthly draw.
The Omaze prizes, which have grown from properties worth just over £1m to more than £3m, also come with a hefty cheque to help with expenses.
Usually the property is in the UK, though last year a lucky grandfather from Wigan won a luxury £2m holiday villa in Marbella along with £250k in cash for his £25 ticket.
For some, who may be nearing retirement, the choice is a no-brainer and they leap at the chance to move to Devon, Cornwall or the Lake District, to take life easier after putting their feet up.
Others may opt for a compromise and rent the property out for a healthy income, either on long-term lets, or Airbnb.
But not everyone wants the responsibility of having to look after a house which may be hundreds of miles from their present home and are not tempted to break ties with family friends, preferring to sell the property as soon as possible.
James Oakes, Omaze’s chief international officer, says roughly a third of people move into their prize house, with another third selling up and the rest renting.
Omaze began in the US in 2012, founded by Stanford graduates Ryan Cummins and Matthew Pohlson. The pair witnesses a charity auction and watched wealthy bidders pledge huge amounts sit alongside basketball legend Magic Johnson at an LA Lakers game.
Their idea was to organise a prize draw with a much lower entry price to attract hundreds of thousands of entrants and benefit charities at the same time.
Since launching in the UK in November 2020, Omaze has given more than £11m to some of the UK’s biggest charities, including the British Heart Foundation, the NSPCC, Great Ormond Street hospital, Dog’s Trust and Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Charities are now so keen be the recipients of the draws and the attendant publicity that they take part in a bidding process to pitch their case.
Here we examine how the huge slice of luck affected the winners in different ways and what they decided to do next…
Ian Garrick – November 2020 – SOLD
Britain’s first Omaze winner, policeman Ian Garrick, 58, from Mablethorpe, Lincs, didn’t hesitate when he heard he had won a £1million-plus house in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire.
‘I sold it as soon as I could,’ he told MailOnline. ‘I didn’t want to move across the country and leave friends and family, but it did change my life as it enabled me to take early retirement from the police and lay down solid foundations for financial security for me and my sons.’
Ian’s wife Julie had died from cancer five years earlier and he said the £1million-plus gift gave him and his sons James, 32, Callum 24 and Nathan 21, a boost after years ‘in limbo’.
The four-bedroom house boasted a vaulted ceiling master bedroom with en suite and dressing room, a beautiful garden with a self-contained pod, a large open-plan kitchen and dining area and outside decking with a hot tub, but nervertheless Ian went for the cheque.
‘I’ve got no ties to Cheshire, so it would be a complete upheaval, then I would have the headache of running a house that size in an area like that without a job, which doesn’t really compute financially.
‘It took ages to sell it, as we were still in lockdown,’ he recalled. ‘I had to keep paying the various bills for the Cheshire house and keep an eye on it from a distance, but I never really entertained moving there.’
The property sold for £1.1m in May 2021, giving Ian the freedom to move a short distance inland to a £500,000 detached house ‘with views of the countryside’.
He kept his old terraced house in Mablethorpe and is having it renovated to be rented out, possibly as a holiday let, along with another property he bought.
Catherine Carwardine, April 2022 – RENTED
NHS worker Catherine Carwardine, 60, won a stunning £3m six-bedroom house overlooking Lake Windermere – raising £1m for Alzheimer’s Research UK.
She and her husband Chris, both originally from Wolverhampton – have fostered children at their current five-bedroom house in Telford for the past five years.
She bought her winning entry on Valentine’s Day.
She recalled: ‘As soon as we stepped inside the house it felt like home. We’ve spent most of last summer up here as well as Christmas enjoying it with friends and family.
‘When we wake up and look out over the lake, we still pinch ourselves, but we’ve not spotted Bownessie [the lake’s fabled ‘monster’] yet!
‘We absolutely love it up here, the house is perfect for hosting, it has everything we could ever need. It’s perfect in the summer with all the outdoor space and views – and so homely in the winter when we love getting a roaring fire going in the living room and settling in for the night.
‘We let the property out when we’re not using it to generate some extra income, so we can help all our children and pay off the mortgage on our house in Telford faster.
‘We can even finish that house now thanks to the extra letting money, it’s been a work in progress for years.
‘Even though winning this prize has been so life changing, I love my job so much I’ve kept working.’
Catherine, who has been working for the NHS for 40 years as a nurse and more recently in an IT role, and Chris, 59, a sales representative for security glazing, celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in 2022 and have four children – Gareth, 35, Jessica, 31, Joshua, 22, Charlotte, 19, along with Mya, 19, who lives with them.
Uttam Parmar, August 2022 – KEPT AS HOLIDAY HOME
Uttam Parmar, 58, won a fabulous £3m four-bedroom Cornish house with panoramic views of the Camel Estuary.
The operations manager for an electronics firm had entered every previous Omaze Draw since the fundraising platform launched in the UK in 2020 – and said the Cornwall house was his favourite – declaring that ‘patience really is a virtue’ now he’s won his ‘own piece of paradise’.
Initially, he and his wife Raki, 53, put the house on the market for £4m, saying they were quite content to stay in their large modern red-brick detached home in a quiet close in Leicestershire.
Six months ago he told MailOnline: ‘It is a fantastic house in a beautiful Cornish location but it comes with a price to keep it running and we can’t afford to. We are selling it and not keeping it as a holiday home.
‘We considered moving there and staying there but with all the costs et cetera it was a lot so we decided to sell it.
‘We have an agent dealing with it and we’re leaving him to sort it out.’
He added: ‘I’m quite a normal guy, there’s some celebrity neighbours but I’m not in that showbiz league.
‘It would be nice to meet a celebrity in the neighbourhood but we’d be a bit out of our depth.’
But since then, Uttam and his family have had a re-think and decided to hang on to the award-winning house – at least for now.
He said this week: ‘Since we won the house we’ve spent most of our time in Cornwall, we absolutely love it here. Some family and friends come to stay, it’s such a great space for hosting!
‘We’re not sure what we’ll eventually do with the property – I think we’ll either rent it out or sell it, but it’s been magical spending so much time here. Everyone in Cornwall has been so welcoming, it has really felt like home.’
Grant Carson January 2023 – UNDECIDED
Widower Grant Carson from Glasgow won a beautiful £2.5m house in the Lake District, along with £100,000 spending money.
Grant, 58, who lost his wife in 2011, had only just retired from his job of 27 years helping disabled people when he learned he’d scooped the spectacular prize.
The 12th Omaze Million-Pound House Draw also raised £850,000 for Dogs Trust.
Grant told MailOnline: ‘Now I’ve had the keys for a while the win has finally sunk in!
‘The house is so lovely, I’ve enjoyed some wonderful stays here with family and friends – it’s the perfect spot for a weekend getaway to the countryside.
‘Long-term, I’ve still not decided what I’m going to do with the house – so I’m just enjoying it at the moment while I make up my mind. Whatever I decide to do, it’s a life changing win for me.’
Marilyn Pratt April 2021 – SOLD
Marilyn Pratt, from Greater London, won the UK’s first ever guaranteed £3m house as part of a fundraising campaign for the British Heart Foundation (BHF).
Marilyn, 68, won the second Omaze Million Pound House Draw – a stunning town house located in London’s leafy Fulham.
The house featured three bedrooms, an office, a gym and a walled garden.
She ‘entered on a whim’ after seeing the house advertised on Facebook, though her husband David, 76 told her it was ‘a waste of a tenner’.
Marilyn said: ‘We decided to sell the house so we could release the money to help both our daughters – one of whom bought her first house, the other already owned a house, so used it help pay off the mortgage and keep some for a rainy day.
‘My husband and I kept a third for us to enjoy family holidays, we’ve been on three wonderful cruises, taken the family on holidays and for fancy lunches at place such as Claridge’s – we just do the kind of lovely things with friends and family you wouldn’t normally be able to do.
‘It’s been amazing sharing and enjoying the money with those closest to us.
‘Winning the house was just an incredible experience all-round, we tell people that if it can happen to us, it can happen to anyone!
She added: ‘We were thrilled to see Omaze raised another £2million for BHF, the charity which benefited by £1million for when we won our house.’
Kevin Johnson March 2023 – MOVED IN
Construction worker Kevin Johnson, 34, and his wife Dee, 44, were overjoyed to win their £3million dream house, a four-bedroom Victorian property in Islington, north London, only half an hour away from their present home.
The couple have lived in their rented three-bedroom flat in East London since 2011 and share four sons together.
When Omaze first contacted Kevin to tell him he’d scooped a prize, he was on his way home from work and had no idea he’d won the Grand Prize, until the team arrived at his doorstep to reveal the good news.
Childcare worker Dee, meanwhile, was on a crowded train and the other commuters who overheard the news of her incredible win burst into spontaneous applause.
Kevin said: ‘We’ve always wanted to own our own house one day, so this really is a dream come true for us – we’ll be moving in as soon as we can. I won’t need to use any of my carpentry skills on the house as it’s absolutely perfect – the kids are going to love it.
‘We’re still pinching ourselves, whatever we decide to do long term, this is going to give us so much security as a family, it’s truly life changing for all of us.’
He added: ‘My wife’s grandma had heart complications in later life, so we’re really pleased that the draw raised £2million for the British Heart Foundation.’
The heart of the house is the expansive, open living space arranged over the entire ground floor, including a reception room featuring oak flooring, a wealth of period features, such as deep set ceiling cornices and cast iron radiators.
A purpose-built garden studio sits against the far wall and comes complete with a fully fitted kitchen and separate WC, providing a useful office space that could also be used as further guest accommodation if required.