Help the Tyrie family to complete their home
My name is Colin and my family and I need help to finish the building of our wheelchair accessible home. In 2016 I was diagnosed with a rare auto-immune disease called systemic sclerosis or SSc which caused rapid disability, most particularly in my hands, but SSc affects every part of the body and progresses over time. There is no cure, only treatments and regular checks to reduce the unpleasant symptoms of the disease. This diagnosis came on top of another older diagnosis I have from birth called Charcot Marie Tooth disease (CMT), another rare, but this time genetic disease, that affects the neuro-muscular system. CMT affects people differently but is also progressive and causes disability with hands and feet impaired mostly.
I have a wife called Cath and two daughters, Billie 17 and Stevie 14. Stevie was born early with cerebral palsy meaning she is a full-time wheelchair user who needs personal care. She also has a learning disability and has inherited CMT from me. We’re a happy family, just the usual fall-outs and disputes but nothing different from most families. What is different are our needs for certain things to be adapted for wheelchairs and activities of daily living.
In 2016 we decided to use the equity of our home and my lump sum NHS pension (I was retired early through disability and deteriorating health) to buy a plot of land and have a purpose built accessible home. We searched for a company who could build our home and found one who appeared to be ideal. The house could be built in around 4 months and the contract had staged payments in line with construction. We sold up and rented for 6 months whilst work started.
The early part appeared to go well and then the excuses came for problems meaning delays. We extended our rental period and released the money as per contract but as a family we were experiencing the difficulties of my health deteriorating and those of caring for a daughter with needs that couldn’t be met as well as they should be because of our living situation. We were facing a longer period of renting in unsuitable housing. Suitable housing is hard enough to find in the buying market (hence why we decided to have a house built to fit our needs) let alone a rental market, where there is no scope to have adaptions made to the property.
Time stretched from months to a year, then two years before we finally pulled the plug on the developer. This was following a telephone call from one of the developers ex-employees who informed us that nobody had been paid and not to give any more money to him. Unfortunately we had already released the second large payment under the impression materials had been purchased. We had been shown a warehouse building full of materials we were told were ours, but it transpired, this was part of the developers modus operandi and he used the same materials to show other victims of his fraudulent business.
It is easy to retrospectively wonder why we let things drift but the answer is hope and a belief that nobody would do this to a family like ours. In fact the developer kept reassuring us to be patient and trust him; ‘how could I sleep at night’ he’d tell us when we asked him if he was not intending to finish the house. I can’t help thinking he selected us as an easy target, desperate and living on hope, we were too consumed by day to day problems of my declining health, Stevie’s disability and not meeting her needs.
I can’t say much more about the situation as it is now with GMP Economic Crime Unit (Fraud) but recovering the money to complete our house is ‘unlikely’ and so we are stuck. Thankfully a local charity came to our aid as no local authority housing to meet our needs is available, despite the fact we were at the top of their priority housing list. The charity made available a private rental of a converted house (wheelchair lift and wet room) that is secure until we no longer need it or our house is finished.
So here we are, asking for any help towards finishing our home and freeing up the charities home for another family who need it. Having a life-limiting condition means that what I leave for my family is the difference between them struggling or not. I believed I had this covered but it was all placed on getting a suitable home so Stevie’s needs could be met and I could end my days knowing my family were secure. We have already tried to meet our goal through another ‘crowd-funding’ route and over 12 months we raised over £16k, but then Covid 19 came and subsequently donations understandably dried up.
In another push to get closer to our goal needed to complete our home, I am asking again, if anyone can help us. Our plight has been reported on by the ‘i’ (see link below), and BBC ‘DIY SOS The Big Build’ came to see us but the work was too complex for them to complete in their allowed time-frame. We’ve approached the mortgage company to lend us more but they are concerned that if the project is not completed, they have no ‘security’. We feel stuck in limbo and time is not on our side. I worked for nearly thirty years as a nurse in the NHS before I became unwell and should have had a comfortable retirement having paid into my pension but instead I’m just another victim of fraud and I feel I’ve let my family down. It doesn’t matter how small a donation people can afford, as any donation is not only financial help but a huge emotional and psychological support to us as a family. Thank you for taking the time to read our story.
https://inews.co.uk/news/real-life/father-daughter-disabled-bungalow-builder-loss-220000-402509
The site of our home as it stands today.