Homes From Hell - Northern Ireland

at the height of the property boom Northern Ireland was one of the biggest winners with house prices rising faster than anywhere else in the UK in Belfast many first-time buyers couldn't afford central locations so they started to look further afield where housing is cheaper Shana and Mairead Billings above teachers they bought their first home together on a brand new development in the small town of Cole Island stress-free life in the countryside and that is where you could afford about our life then maybe city life itself three bedrooms upstairs Downstairs toilets lowly fireplace wooden floors the house cost one hundred and seventy five thousand pounds and they got a mortgage for the full amount that's would be I won here doing we thought with the head the jackpot that was all set and ready to move all my filets Cisco we're from worse to worse the town of Cole Island is 35 miles west of Belfast city centre and Mairead and Shaina are on their way their developer was gonna be furnished within a few months and there was a lot of interest and the houses there were sold Sainz around the police the lovely host especially for a first-time buyer the beginnings of a lovely area the completed development was to have over 70 homes but some were never finished and only a few were ever sold this is the vault this is the first phase and there's a couple of families in this area I was one or two there's still a couple of houses that are over left I mean you can see these phases here just near rates just gonna wrap and real just believe this is the second fee this is a sacrifice common this house proper years would have been honored they moved in in January 2008 but their neighbors never did they realized that none of the other houses on their Terrace had been sold and because the houses were left empty pretty soon they were vandalized it's not a foster home right she's not more Parranda now this would have been our hasty action you can see him saving the houses next to it that's the dam it's not and that that's been done to them even the front when there was something that's better new damaging fireplaces ripped off and skirting boards tearing up the words taken off I mean just see the fine weather some of the theft that's gonna already facing the window that one had a soul sand but nobody ever dead movin oh please destroy they bought the house in summer 2007 before the property market crashed but when they moved in six months later Northern Ireland's giant boom was going bust building work on the next phase of the development ground to a halt and the vandalism was making the area more and more rundown this karate Li got worse and worked its way down closer and closer and closer dales when it got the stage for over eleven in the house and the pallets had bent on the next door as well so they were worried if you were gonna be sitting in the living room from the commissary window I mean even just being here it's just upsetting I mean you can just even though he's just behind right behind they're just completely violating 12 13 14 houses gone the rack Andrew and vandals weren't the only unwelcome visitors our house was at the Antos I mean I had r8 none we got all the rodents and from the rest of the area come up there I squeezed it obviously after the heath or whatever but a minute stages during the night you could just hear them sound like 40 mace or something roaming through the Attic after six months of living in misery and fear things got so bad they had to move out it's been months since they've seen the house and marae's agreed to have one last look that's sort of in the window for their downstairs toilet and it was plenty room you can just see that the roster here and the space that there was I think probably won't good memory was at probably the first day yeah we got a room house and then that was it first day well since then was just downhill ever since so it's month 11 here coming home from work hard day's work one time to come home to us just drive you nuts you know you can't expect to live here me as a family there's no way that's possible just we're on our own so you have nobody around you and you know we just just look at that - every single morning it's a nightmare mothers pat their neighbors here like you would have been nice out here in this Sun but a pigsty nights a dump ghoster states like this aren't unusual in Ireland according to reports there are six hundred and twenty one of them during the boom years around 200,000 new homes were built but never sold and now one in every five Irish homes is unoccupied for the last 18 months marade and Shayna have been renting this house just outside Belfast and they're both working full-time they've got a 175,000 power more gage on a home they can't live in and they can't sell so at just 29 years old they've made a life-changing decision they're going bankrupt and having the home they once owned repossessed enough was enough for naval shoes to pay the thousand per month for a basically a host of the routier Fred 11 we didn't do anything wrong never defaulted on a payment wanted to make the eyesynth Weiland a home start a family we're basically left with nothing night I stopped feeling ashamed myself in a lot of shyam I don't know why because I know it wasn't our fault but I think that it's just still as a dirty word it's now the morning of their bankruptcy hearings this is this was a last resort the final choice that was giving this newly choice the only choice really was the last thing we wanted but we did everything we did everything all the doors were shut Murphy's sangre it's normal sly I mean it's just everything I mean it feels physically the test is in a way that will make it so men do that spots Lenora minutes for us it's not so ah you the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast is where their bankruptcy case is being heard there are more than 60,000 bankruptcy cases a year in the UK and the number is rising once Mairead and Shane are made bankrupt it'll have a serious impact on their future their bank accounts will be frozen and they'll find it hard to get credit I mean just after two minutes back through the pages and said okay we can see you can see that you're nuts enough fraudulent it's just from now you're bankrupt and the official receiver I'll be in touch with you really one just forget about it I am never will near that place again and you know just want to be done with night and a harbor where there's a there's a key thing for us I mean and said all you need to do now is just move on to laying on the mmm start there enjoy my place tell him I enjoy my life um yeah we're having just a leave on and see what here we go I mean the left with the guy a long time but I think we can world Selby hit the gallery a lot of years to come

Channel: PeoplesInfoNetwork

Views: 376,402

Rating: 4.6760125 out of 5

Keywords: Homes From Hell, Northern Ireland

Id: zEIdchN2NMQ

Length: 10min 33sec (633 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 13 2010