They couldn’t believe their luck. They’d found their dream home in a good neighbourhood and because it was on auction they were getting it at a bargain price with luxury furnishings and appliances thrown in.
After signing the paperwork, Chantelle and Geoffrey Bennet couldn’t wait to pop the bubbly and start choosing paint colours for the three-bedroom house in Lorraine, Gqeberha, in the Eastern Cape, which had been part of an insolvent deceased estate.
But within 30 minutes of winning the auction, with the ink barely dry on the contract they’d signed, the couple got a nasty surprise when another family barged in, claiming the house was theirs.