Man buys house for £1

Owner of first £1 home gets keys

The keys for the first £1 home have been given to their new owner in a scheme to get more people on the property ladder

Jayalal Madde, a self employed taxi driver, is the first of 20 people to receive a £1 home in Liverpool as part of a bid to revive disused buildings in the city.

Mr Madde, 48, will now start refurbishing the terraced house in Granby for him and his wife and their two daughters, aged 10 and 11.

The project is part of the city council's commitment to bring 1,000 empty properties back into use.

Mr Madde is one of ten people who will be contacted this week to tell them they have been successful in getting a £1 property. He confirmed he now has the finance in place to start refurbishment works on the house and hopes he and his family will be able to move in within 12 months.

Joe Andersen, the Mayor of Liverpool, handed over the keys. He said: "We've had an amazing response to this scheme and have been absolutely inundated with applications, so to already be in a position to allocate the first 10 homes is fantastic.

"Everything we are doing is about building a sustainable future for our neighbourhoods - and we've placed that at the heart of the decisions we've made when looking at the applications.

"We are only looking for people who have a genuine commitment to bringing these properties back to life and turning them into a home they are proud to live in.

"We're confident that Mr Madde is one such individual."

More than 1,000 people applied for one of the houses in the Granby Four Streets, Arnside Road and Webster Triangle East areas of the city.

Mr Andersen said it should not be forgotten that bringing the homes up to standard would be a “real challenge.”

He added: "Properties in these areas have lain empty for too long - but in tough economic times, we need to be creative and look at doing things differently."

As part of the scheme applicants for the homes had to live or work in Liverpool and be a first time buyer. They also had to be employed and agree to live in the property for a minimum of five years and not sub-let it within that time.

-YahooFinance