Life sometimes throws you a curve ball and our family have had their fair share. Two emergency caesarians, two premmie babies, and two beautiful daughters. Stevie was the earliest, born at 28 weeks, her early entry into the world gave her cerebral palsy and a learning disability. She cannot sit up, stand, or walk. She needs help dressing, washing and eating. She has had several operations on her eyes, hips and legs and she attends a special school. But Stevie is also a child who is so much fun to be with and continues to amaze us. Billie was unaffected by her early entry at 32 weeks and has a questioning mind, a strength in fairness, and a brilliantly caring nature. They are beautiful souls, both of them.

We are a couple who shared the same interests, ideals, and ideology. We just wanted to just live quietly along side others and build a life for us and our daughters; somewhere to put down roots and just somewhere to “be”. Neither Colin nor I, really had this when we were growing up. We are a couple who adapted to the physical limitations of one of us getting ill when Colin was diagnosed in 2002 with a progressive neurological disease, and then in 2016 with an auto-immune disease, which was terminal. This disease is slowly going to end our lives together, leaving the other to face the future alone and care for our youngest daughter, with half of us missing. The last two and a half years of our lives have been such a struggle.

These were the struggles, difficulties, reasons, that steered a path towards one development company’s door. We needed a house that we could all share, that we could all live in, without stairs and steps. We looked at bungalows but not only were they often not wheelchair accessible but the sale price, on top of renovations, was too much for us. We started to look for companies that would be able to build us a house from scratch. It proved to be the biggest mistake we would ever make...

Three years after we sold our family home, put our belongings into storage and went in to rented accommodation, we are still here. The company who promised to build us a home in three months, has taken the equity on the sale of our family home, our savings, Colin’s NHS nursing pension (released early due to his terminal illness), and a mortgage, altogether £221,800. They have since sold the company to the unlicensed insolvency company BDG Group who brag about buying up companies debts and helping them to "avoid Insolvency proceedings, claims or prosecution for Insolvency Offences." Although it was illegal to sell our contract without our permission money remains “missing” between the old company and the new one they have set up. An official receiver manages at least the first stage of bankruptcies and companies wound up by a court. They are looking into the matter as are the police.

I have asked myself many times, should we have known? But we did our research, we visited the company, met the staff, went through costings and designs, got a contract. Unfortunately, the law doesn't seem to have made it that difficult for companies like this one, to promise you everything, take your money, and walk away.

We continue to privately rent a two-up-two-down, terraced house in stockport. It was to be for three months in 2018. Our youngest daughter sleeps in the lounge because she can’t get up the stairs as a wheelchair user. Colin sometimes cannot make the stairs to bed and sleeps downstairs. There are no washing facilities downstairs, so Billie and I take Stevie swimming every week, to wash her hair and her body. We pay £700 a month rent, over £400 month for a mortgage on the house that was never built. We pay over £200 for storage costs for our belongings which we can’t put anywhere. We pay gas and rent on the site. We are not eligible for council housing because of the mortgage we have. We have a brilliant solicitor and we couldn’t have done this without him but we have also needed to ensure that he is paid. We have one income. We are stuck. We are sinking.

Our plea to all those kind hearted people out there is to help us build a home by giving whatever you can 50p, £1, £10. It will all help. It may take us years, but we have to try. If there are any companies who may be able to donate anything for the build we would also love to hear from you. Anything anyone can offer... we will be forever grateful for.