Yeah, you would be looking at a hefty tax hit! Those gov types would look at this as if you won 950,000 all in one lump sum!!!!
I don't know the personal tax rates "across the pond", but over here in the States that would mean a 56% Federal TAX BILL! And all due by April 15th of next year with "quarterly" pre-payments! And that's just the FED tax. Then you would have the State tax. Here in Iowa that would add on another 18%.
950,000 x 56% = 532,000
950,000 x 18% = 171,000 - but they do give some allowance for Fed taxes paid
Total = 703,000
And that's the taxes that would have to be paid to "win" this property - if it was here in Iowa in these United States! So you would only have 247,000 in equity, and a large mortgage to pay off to cover that tax bill.
Over the past decade, several people raffled off their farms this way - $100 usd per ticket, minimun number of tickets needed to be sold or the raffle was off and you got your money back (minus an "administrative" fee). They all got lots of publicity from the news media, but no ... follow up was ever really done and publicized like the original contest. I only heard of one farm raffle that sold enough tickets. And the winner ended up selling the place to pay off the tax bill. He couldn't even get a bank loan/mortgage to keep running/working the farm. He didn't have enough "equity" in it for the bank to "take a chance". After all the lawyers and real estate agent fees, he ended up with enough to buy a new pickup truck - but went through 2 years of legal nightmare.
And that one "farm raffle" brought in about 25% more total money in ticket sales for the farm than they would have got by selling it on the regular real estate market. They did OK, but the lawyers and the Tax man LOVED it!
You end up being better off winning the lottery. The tax man takes everything out before you ever get any money. But what you get is free and clear - no scrambling about trying to get loans to pay the tax man.
Still sounds great and worth a try. But I personally won't.
Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands