House Raffles – Can you trust them and could you raffle your own home?

Property prize draws or ‘house raffles’ are experiencing a surge in popularity, with opportunities to win anything from an apartment to a 3-bed semi or a life-changing, dream home and business.

Imagine living with your parents or in a rented flat and, for the price of a coffee, you’re suddenly the owner of a beautiful home, mortgage and rent free. It really does happen. There have been many success stories this year, with lucky winners, in Shropshire, London, The Midlands and Wales, to name just a few. But property prize draws have had some bad press in the past, so how do you know which ones to trust and would you ever consider raffling your own home?

The rules and regulations can be confusing, so we spoke to Sue & Martin Stephenson. They’re currently promoting www.winadreamproperty.co.uk  which is a prize draw for two stunning homes in their converted chapel in Snowdonia. Tickets are £3 (or 4 for £10) and they’re hoping to raise £100,000 for Alzheimer’s Society. Martin explained why they chose this rather unconventional way to ‘sell’ their property.

“We’d decided it was time to move back to Yorkshire, to be close to family and we’d seen other, successful prize draws. We saw it as an amazing opportunity for someone to change their life, whilst raising a large amount of money for charity. We specifically wanted to help Alzheimer’s Society as we’ve lost two relatives to the disease and 3 years ago my father was diagnosed with dementia”.

A property prize draw isn’t for the faint hearted and involves a lot of research, to ensure that everything is done properly and legally. As Martin explains:

“Property prize draws do not require a licence and are not regulated by the Gambling Commission, but it’s very important to ensure that you’re not running an illegal lottery. To do this you need to either include an element of skill (usually a multiple choice question), in which case it is a Prize Competition, or offer a free entry option, which makes it a Free Prize Draw with Paid Entry route. Most of the successful prize draws have taken a ‘belt & braces’ approach and included both”.

It’s also important to ensure that you abide by all of the guidelines set out by the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority), CAP (Committee of Advertising Practice) and NTSELAT (National Trading Standards Estate & Letting Agency Team).

“To be honest it would be much easier if property prize draws were regulated by one organisation. If you could refer to them, register with them and get approval, to show that your promotion is legitimate, it would make the process so much easier and give entrants the reassurance they need. Perhaps this will happen, as the popularity of ‘house raffles’ increases”

To make sure you get it right, you’ll need to take legal advice. If this all seems a bit daunting, you may choose to use an established ticket sales platform, such as Raffall.

Martin and Sue were in a good position to manage their own promotion, as Sue has worked in marketing for many years and they have set up and run several successful businesses. They did their own exhaustive research, took advice from lawyers and The Institute of Promotional Marketing and spent months studying other prize draws and the reasons for their success or failure. Sue explained that it’s not something you can take on lightly.

“It has to be done properly, as you only get one chance at it and it involves a significant investment. There are several costs involved and you need to be prepared to pay for a professional website and all of the associated fees. You need to know that if there’s a big spike in sales you have a database, server capacity and email capability to cope with the demand”.

Ticket prices are usually low and the odds of winning are excellent, compared to things like the national lottery, but how do you know if you can trust them? A good indicator is charity involvement.

www.winadreamproperty.co.uk is being run in association with Alzheimer’s Society. A reputable, national charity would never allow the use of their name and logo if their legal team hadn’t checked them out thoroughly. To double check, you can search the social media pages of the charity, to see if they’ve shared the promotion. Some competition sites make only vague references to charity donations. If they mention a charity it doesn’t necessarily mean that the charity is ‘on board’.

If there is no charity involved, then you will have to rely on the website content, social media and your own judgement. Everything should be transparent and clearly set out in the website Terms and Conditions. There will also be a lot of information on the promotion’s Facebook and social media pages. If there’s something you’re still not sure about, email the promoters for clarification.

You should also check the payment method for ticket purchases. Paypal doesn’t currently support this kind of online competition, so most of them use Stripe, which is a very reputable and secure alternative.

So, what if you’re considering raffling your own home? The Stephensons have discovered that it’s a full-time job. Sue explained:

“We’re constantly dealing with entries, marketing and enquiries, at all hours of the day and night. Social media is a wonderful vehicle for this kind of promotion but it requires attention 24/7, to manage it. It’s a huge amount of work and can be quite stressful. Our biggest problem has been that when people see what we’re offering (two beautiful houses with a total of 7 en-suite bedrooms, fully furnished and with a hot tub, sauna & baby grand piano) many think that it’s simply too good to be true”.

In addition to the day-to-day administration of the prize draw, it’s necessary to run regular promotions to maximise ticket sales. Win A Dream Property has monthly prize draws and all tickets issued in December will go into a New Year’s Eve ‘Wheel of Fortune’ prize draw, with several prizes of up to £1,000.

For Capel Jerusalem & Jerusalem Vestry to be given as the prize in the main prize draw, the target is to sell 330,000 tickets. This will cover an impressive donation to Alzheimer’s Society of £100,000, the costs of the promotion, including marketing, Stamp Duty and legal fees and leave the owners with around £700,000 for the property and contents.

All details are set out in the Terms and Conditions and, as with most house raffles, if the target is not achieved, a significant cash prize will be given instead. This will be 70% of the ticket income, after costs, with Alzheimer’s Society receiving a donation of 15%.

Chris Manley, Alzheimer’s Society Philanthropy Manager said:

“We are very grateful to Martin and Sue for choosing to support Alzheimer’s Society – it really is an incredible gesture”.

Tickets can be purchased at www.winadreamproperty.co.uk. So far, more than 100,000 tickets have been sold and the couple are confident of reaching their target in time for the Closing Date on Valentine’s Day, 14^th February 2021. The draw will take place on 1^st March.