Living in a friend's mobile home, Paul Mappley and Yip Ward were struggling to get a foot on the property market. But after taking a bold leap of faith, the couple are now the proud owners of an entire French village.
Costing them just £22,000, La Busliere in Normandy consists of six cottages, two barns and a paddock. And, as reported by the Mirror, its new owners are planning to turn their very own hamlet into a luxury holiday site.
Paul and Yip featured on Channel 4 show Help, We Bought A Village! on Monday. Both 48 and landscape gardeners, they explained they were living in a caravan in Tunbridge Wells in Kent when they decided to opt out of finding a home in the UK.
Yip said buying in Kent, where properties start at £300,000 for somewhere "tiny", was "never on the table". They have always rented and at the time were living in a static mobile home owned by a friend.
But when the pal announced they were selling the caravan last year, the couple decided to look elsewhere. Yip told The Sun : "It was incredibly exciting when we heard from a friend about Le Busliere. We began to think: ‘This could really happen for us.'”
The village also boasts a two-storey workshop, a well, cider press and communal bread oven. Paul said the move was quite stressful at first and money, at times, is tight, but they are "so grateful" to be there.
“It was like a squat when we moved in, but we’re quite comfortable now," he said. And they get on great with the neighbours.
Paul added that there were "whispers" about the new owners. But he joked "not because we're the only gays in the village - there are others living in theirs".
