My cousin Lesley flushed over five and a half million pounds down the toilet! Well, she might as well have done.
Her husband had a fantastic job opportunity in New Zealand and as a family they decided to all go out there and sold up and off they went as she was also to secure a good job.
He loves it out there. She hates it.
After a few years they decide she will come back with the children and they will both take it in turns to fly out for visits.
This is where it all went wrong.
They had a lot of money saved and she was able to buy a house outright back in London. She bought a house for 7 million which would have been great if it was all ok but it was a run down money pit.
She had absolutely no idea about doing it up and she hired companies and tradesmen who left the property in such a state that she and the children had to move out into a hotel as the house became uninhabitable.
She was keeping all of this from her husband, well he knew some work was being carried out but not the full extent.
We had all told her not to buy it.
To cut a long story short the house was in need of so much work she nearly had a break down and left her job due to stress.
She sold the house for £1.5 million which was a massive loss and made us her family all feel sick at what she had done and we all felt sorry for her husband who had been kept in the dark.
Fast forward a few years to now and he is back in the U.K. and the jobs for both of them are a lower wage but they have a lovely house but on a smaller scale than the 7 million pound one which incidentally was bought up and restored and is probably now worth over £20 million.
The strange thing is she has always been very level headed and this reckless decision to buy and restore an old property was completely out of character for her.