Winton House: Raffle for £3.2m Portsmouth mansion is cancelled

The draw to win Winton House, in Portsdown Hill Road, was due to end on December 22 but entrants were told of its sudden closure on Monday night.

Its website has since been taken down and replaced with a cancellation message that states all competitors will receive ‘refunds in full’.

Tickets were £10 each and promised a shot at winning the five-bedroom house and its detached two-bedroom annex, orangery and indoor pool.

In a message emailed to entrants and posted on the Winton House website, organisers said the raffle was cancelled ‘under clause 5.3' of its terms and conditions.

The clause reads: ‘The promoters reserve the right to cancel the competition at any time either before or after tickets have been sold.

‘If the competition is cancelled, the promoter Lit Digi Ltd will return the entry fees minus the transaction fees to each entrant (either by bank card refund or by cheque and in one combined payment where several entries have been made by a competitor).

‘Where the entry fee minus the transactions fees is returned, the promoter shall have no further liability to the entrant or to any other person.’

But the website message says that no transaction fees will be deducted. It adds: ‘All entrants will be refunded in full. The refund process will start on Monday, November 23, 2020.

‘If the card used is no longer in use, funds will still be routed into your bank account.

‘If you bought tickets on more than one occasion, you will receive a full refund for each transaction.

‘Refunds are in full and no transaction fees will be deducted.’

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The owner of Winton House, businessman Akhtar Siddiqui, previously told The News he was ‘working extremely hard’ to reach a target of 320,000 ticket sales to match the property’s value.

A total of 8,846 entries had been purchased by August 26 – six days after The News covered the raffle’s launch.

Public concern was previously raised over two of the competition’s other conditions, clauses 4.12 and 4.13, which stated a cash prize could instead be won if the threshold for entries was not met.

The latter also stated that Mr Siddiqui could technically retain 50 per cent of the cash raised by the raffle to cover marketing and administration costs.

Mr Siddiqui previously said thousands of pounds would be spent on marketing the raffle ‘across the UK and globally' through Lit Digi Ltd, a company he co-incorporated in March.

The News approached Mr Siddiqui about the raffle's cancellation but he was unavailable to comment.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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