A British couple’s dream of retiring in Spain turned into a £200k nightmare, forcing them to return to the UK.
Phil and Anne Bulman, both 71, moved to Costa Blanca in 2004 after selling their home and buying their dream house in Almoradi.
However, after 20 years, they returned to Britain claiming they were victims of robbers, cowboy builders, and red tape. Phil revealed that they invested £374k into their Spanish dream but only made back £161k – a loss of £213k.
He said: “We’ve all had ideas of that idyllic dream – but it just doesn’t turn out like that. For us it was an expensive nightmare.”
The couple chose a beautiful plot in orange and lemon groves nearly two decades ago, where they built their dream home for £230,000.
They also paid £18,500 for a pool and terraces and added a second property for their daughter. However, problems arose when they had work done on their pool, leading to unexpected inspections.
Phil claims he was then told the extra house and pool were illegal – and would be destroyed if he didn’t pay £30,000. He said: “It was awful. We’d trusted the builder and hadn’t had the solicitor look over all the documents.
“We showed them all the paperwork from the builder and they said it was all twaddle.”
Phil added that because the money was owed to tax authorities, they emptied their account of £10,000.
“Then the builder just vanished,” Phil revealed. “He’d built a few houses nearby and left us all with water tanks, no mains connection – it cost us 70 Euros a month to get the tank filled.
“We spent loads of money on solicitors trying to get mains-water connected,” Phil said. Disheartened, the couple moved back to the UK for work and let out their Spanish home.
However, in 2015, Phil claims their tenant stopped paying and they had to leave in a hurry. The couple returned to Spain to find they had been robbed.
He said: “They had stripped our house and our daughter’s house of everything. There was just one small mattress, a few pots and pans, and a few pieces of cutlery left.
“And it was absolutely filthy. This was before we had mains water and it didn’t look like they’d flushed the loo in the whole two and a half years.”
The couple then restocked the houses from the UK, costing another £7,000.
But in 2018, they discovered their car missing and their house broken into. Phil shared: “They’d pulled the security gates off and smashed all the patio doors – there was glass everywhere.
“They took everything of value that wasn’t screwed down.”
This was the last straw, leading them to sell their dream home for 190,000 in 2021. However, they were informed they hadn’t paid enough council tax and are still awaiting the bill. Now residing in South East England, Phil said: “It was a dream that turned into a nightmare.”
This article was crafted with the help of AI tools, which speed up the Daily Express editorial research. A Daily Express editor reviewed this content before it was published. You can report any errors here.
