Win My Spanish Villa - Closed
Enter this competition for your chance to win a 4 bedroom villa on the Costa Blanca in Spain. For just £5 you could win this home in the sun complete with swimming pool and 2.5 acres of land. The competition is also supporting The Big Issue Foundation.
Launched: 2nd April 2021 Closed: 31st December 2021
Location: Aigues de Busot, Spain,
House Value: £800000 (4 Bedrooms)
Ticket Price: £5.00 (Free Entry Available)
Minimum Ticket Target: 250000
Tickets Sold: Unknown
Cash Alternative: 60% net of ticket sales
Win My Spanish Villa are the latest site to try and giveaway an overseas property via the online competition market. The owners, Stephen and Debra Else, are on the verge of retiring and have relocated to Malta. Interestingly the owners actually built the home 20 years ago and there are pictures on the website showing this. Casa Juanita is located in the village of Aguas de Busot on the Cosea Blanca. The website provides quite a lot of detail about the property, location and competition. It's valued at approximately £800,000 to £850,000 and comes fully furnished.
About The Property
The property itself has 4 bedrooms, large kitchen, dining room, living room and comes with a large indoor and outdoor terrace. There's a garage with room for one car plus 2.5 acres of land. A large swimming pool plus panoramic views of the Mediterranean complete the impressive prize on offer. There are plenty of photos on the website showing the various highlights. The property will come fully furnished plus tax, stamp duty and associated costs of property transfer will be met by the promoters. Tickets for the competition cost £5 each however there are free tickets if you purchase more.
How To Enter The Competition
For example buy 10 tickets to get three free, buy 100 tickets to get 50 free. There doesn't seem to be any restriction on the number of tickets you can purchase and from a responsible gambling point of view offering the chance to 'contact us for higher ticket quantities' isn't good practice. Once you've selected the number of tickets you wish to purchase a multiple choice 'skill' question needs to be answered. You are not told if you get the answer wrong. Payments are taken using Paypal. A No Purchase Necessary postal route is available should you wish to opt fo this method of entry. Details are in the terms but note entries need to be sent to a Malta address.
250,000 Tickets
Win My Spanish Villa require a minimum of between 250,000 and 300,000 paid tickets (£1.25million to £1.5million revenue) to be purchased by the end of December 2021 for the house to be awarded. The target range is based on whether the property gets promotion via media or not. If not then this will result in higher costs for advertising. If target minimum paid ticket sales is achieved a donation will be made to The Big Issue Foundation of £50,000. The promoter reserves the right to extend the closing date if the minimum number of paid tickets has not been reached.
Extensions
If after any extension not enough tickets are sold to giveaway the property then a cash prize will be awarded. According to the terms "60% of sales net to date will form a cash prize to replace the first prize of the villa". A donation to The Big Issue Foundation will still be paid and this will be taken from the 40% retained figure. The final amount is based on the proportionate amount of tickets sold. Whatever remains will be kept by the promoter as cover for costs such as admin, payment gateways, marketing etc.
Payments
Our Verdict
One thing that has caught our eye with this particular competition is that they're using Paypal as a payment option. Paypal have not always accepted gambling/raffle sites but there does seem to have been a policy change (Elite Competitions for example now use them). It's use does still concern us as you just never know if Paypal are going to change their minds and decide that their service isn't there to support raffles. The other noteworthy point is the encouragement to purchase large amounts of tickets. That isn't good from a responsible gambling point of view and we'd like to see that addressed.
Our Verdict
We all love the idea of a home in the sun and waking up to amazing views - especially when it's cold and snowing in The UK during April. This is a nice looking home and would be ideal as a holiday let, Air BNB or somewhere to start a new life in Spain. The problem that Win My Spanish Villa faces is that overseas property do struggle to sell enough tickets. We'd be very surprised if this doesn't at least end up with an extension. Good advertising and media campaigns are needed but even then that may not be enough to create a home winner.
Relaunched October 2021
This competition was due to close at the end of June 2021 but was beset with payment gateway issues. We're not quite sure what happened but according to the terms the competition restarted on the 1st October and is scheduled to run until the end of December. The minimum ticket target changed from 220,000 to 250,000 which seems incredibly ambitious given how poor the competition experience has been to date. We're not convinced that this will create a property winner. Enter Competition Here
Win My Spanish Villa Discussion
We're keen to hear your views on Win My Spanish Villa. Join in the conversation below and share your experiences. You'll need to be a Facebook user in order to post. Please note that comments are not moderated and may not always reflect the views of Loquax Ltd.
Disclaimer: Details shown above were correct at time of writing and are provided for information purposes only. Images are used under fair use policy. Map location is approximated by Google based on postcode/location info. Any links provided are not an endorsement from Loquax. In some cases Loquax may earn a referral fee from sales this does not effect our review. We strongly advise all visitors do due diligence on each contest before deciding to enter. Terms and conditions apply. Begambleaware.org.
Footnote: Spanish properties attract a hefty tax on purchase. This can be up to 19% of the property value although this may be covered by the promoter so do check the terms. Note also that since Brexit UK citizens can only spend 90 days out of every 180 in the EU. If you win and rent out the property then you will also have to pay tax.
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