Selling your house by raffle is a way to sell your house through a contest. People who are interested in the house can buy a ticket or multiple tickets for a chance at winning the home. Tickets can come at various prices, depending on the home. Most tickets are often advertised for as little as a few pounds each, but they could also cost as much as £20 each. A winner is then drawn on a date set by the organiser. The winner may have bought a single ticket, which means in theory, you could win a house for the price of supermarket sandwich meal deal.
Can I legally sell my house by raffle?
Houses for sale by raffle are not illegal. You will, however, need to adhere to the laws and regulations that surround gambling. According to the law, selling tickets to win a prize means you’re running a lottery, so you’ll have to apply for a licence from the UKGC before you can set up a house sale by raffle. If you decide to host a sale by raffle, you may want to work with a solicitor to be sure you’re doing things legally, otherwise you could land yourself with some hefty fines.
How It Works
A house for sale by raffle is organised by the homeowner themselves and there is no company who can organise this kind of raffle for you. However, there are raffle competition companies that may help you, but you will need to do a few things for this to happen.
Firstly, you must register your property raffle for lottery duty. This means you will have to pay 12% of the proceeds from your ticket sales to the lottery duty. You will then need to speak to a solicitor to be sure the terms and conditions of your raffle are legally compliant.
Next, you’ll want to consider both the deadline for the ticket sales and the number of minimum ticket sales you need to hit before you can give the house away. If you don’t hit that figure, you’ll need to consider what the alternative prize might be, which is usually a cash prize. If you don’t specify these things in your rules, you could end up being forced to give away your home for what you’ve made on the property raffle itself. Alternatively, you could specify in the terms and conditions that you will refund any tickets if you don’t sell enough to raffle the house off.
Finally, the exciting part. You’ll need to hold the ticket drawing itself. Nowadays, almost all raffle draws are held on social media via live streaming. For example, you could use platforms like Facebook live, Instagram live or even YouTube live steaming.
Once you’ve drawn a ticket and the raffle is complete, you’ll just need to transfer the ownership of the property to the winner which is usually done through your solicitor. Once things are completed, you hand over the keys to your home and that is it. Your house sold by raffle process is complete.
