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A BRITISH couple have been left penniless and homeless in the Costa Blanca, Spain after being conned into paying £300,000 for a retirement home that will have to be demolished.

Bruce Gauntlett and Wendy Jackson-Smith ploughed their savings into a luxury villa on the Costa Blanca, expecting to spend the rest of their lives there.

They spent £33,000 on a plot of land and a further £250,000 building the striking property.

But their dreams of a comfortable retirement in the sun lie in ruins after Spanish bureaucrats served them with a demolition order because their home is built on land earmarked for agriculture.

Mr Gauntlett, 61, said the estate agent who sold him the land - around 20 miles south of Alicante - did not tell him he could not build on it.

He has started legal action against the estate agent and landowner but a lengthy court battle will not reach a conclusion in time to save his home.

Experts said it was likely that Mr Gauntlett had been duped into buying the land and warned Britons buying in Spain to watch out for the scam.

Mr Gauntlett told last night how he faces a bleak future with only his pension to live on and is considering moving back to the UK. 'This has been like stepping into a nightmare,' he said. 'I have sunk everything I have into this.'

He said he had always dreamed of retiring to Spain and when he was offered voluntary redundancy from his job as an engineering manager he seized his opportunity.

He sold his house in Tyneside and moved to Spain with his partner Mrs Jackson-Smith and began searching for land.

When he saw an advert for what seemed to be a perfect plot in a local paper he seized his chance and went ahead with the purchase, before hiringa developer to build his home.

The villa, which has four bedrooms, a large lounge diner, a courtyard and sun terrace, was finished last May.

HOME AWAY FROM HOME
Their £300,000 villa is set to be bulldozedBut weeks after the final brick was laid, the couple received the devastating news that it was not legal. 'In June the police arrived with officials from the town hall,' said Mr Gauntlett.

'They said we should not have built here because it is agricultural land and not building land for development.

'At first they said we would be fined but it would not be a problem. They reckoned we would pay about £10,000 and everything would be sorted.

But then there was a change in government and that fine came in at £19,000 and they served us with a demolition order on the house.' It is believed the house will be torn down within months.

Property expert Sarah Monaghan, editor of Everything Spain magazine, said: 'British people tend to leave all sense at home when they buy abroad.

'Luckily, scams like this are few and far between but people must always check the status of land before they buy it in Spain.

'It is best to hire a reputable lawyer to deal with the transactions as you would in the UK.'

Property in Marbella