Selling a house by raffle

[BLally]

Is it legal to sell off a mortgaged house by raffle? Can it be done without special permission from the lender? (One doesn't normally need a lender's permission to go on the market..)

[Buenchico]

All lotteries are unlawful unless they fall within the provisions of the Lotteries and Amusements Act 1976 (as amended).

Authorised lotteries must be 'incidental to exempt entertainments' (e.g. at a local fete), 'private' (e.g. restricted to people who work at the same place of employment), 'local' (i.e. promoted by a local authority) or 'societies� lotteries'. Societies' lotteries must be primarily for one of the following purposes:
(a)charitable purposes;
(b)participation in or support of athletic sports or games or cultural activities;
(c)purposes which are not described in paragraph (a) or (b) above but are neither purposes of private gain nor purposes of any commercial undertaking.

Anyone conducting any other lottery faces a prison sentence of up to two years, with the possible forfeiture of anything associated with the lottery (in your case, that includes the house).

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/uk pga/1976/cukpga_19760032_en_1

Chris

[buildersmate]

I don't doubt you are right in this detail, Chris.
But it has been done before - I wonder how.

[Oneeyedvic]

To get round the law, you run it as a competition.

This one had the question "What grows on apple trees"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgesh ire/4607419.stm

[buildersmate]

Ah, thanks, OEV.

[jack daniels]

there was this one too

http://www.huntspost.co.uk/content/hunts/news/ story.aspx?brand=HPTOnline&category=News&tBran d=cambs24&tCategory=NewsHPT&itemid=WEED05%20Ju l%202006%2012%3A07%3A41%3A283

[factor-fiction]

This has been tried before but does anyone know how successful this approach has been. I can't trecall any success stories but I remember reading about such raffles/competitions that flopped because of lack of sales, and there's a big risk that if all the tickets aren't sold you lose a lot on the sale. A seller should probably take legal advice to get the competetion rules right.

[littlechub]

This one:
http://www.winadevonpropertywithfishing.co.uk/ index.php
has sold all 46,000 tickets much more quickly than expected, and has therefore brought the draw date forward (fingers crossed for me - I have 2 tickets!).

I understand that it had to be a 'competition' rather than just a draw - this one had a very easy question to answer.

If I remember rightly, in the event that all tickets weren't sold, the owners were going to take 35% of the funds raised, and the remainder of the cash was to be given to the winner drawn.