Two new owners of former fishermen’s cottages at Newport, south of Hemsby in Norfolk, have been told their homes are in danger of falling into the sea within months of buying them.
Great Yarmouth Borough Council has advised the owners to leave, the BBC reported. Both homes were bought within the past three months.
They are among nine properties the council says have moved inside a 10m erosion risk zone.
Bought at a discount
Nathan Weissbraun, from Manchester, paid £60,000 in September for a three-bedroom house in a terrace of four cottages. He owns about 20 rental properties, according to the BBC.
He said the price was £55,000 below what the previous owner paid in 2023, and that he had never visited Norfolk. He told the BBC he wanted to fight to keep the house, and called it the first and last property he would buy in the county.
Lynn Sweet, 64, bought a four-bedroom cottage and a two-bedroom annexe at auction in August for £145,000. She had hoped to let the larger cottage to supplement her income in retirement.
About eight weeks later the council told her the building was unsafe and faced demolition. She knew about the erosion at Hemsby, she said, but expected to get 10 to 20 years out of the purchase.
Owners have asked the council to publish more evidence that the homes are unsafe. They say the pace of the process leaves no time to get answers.
Auction house and council respond
Bryan Baxter, director of Auction House East Anglia, said sellers were entitled to sell and that the firm tried to disclose known risks. Where erosion is a factor, he said, buyers are told to do their own research.
The council said it was acting to protect public safety. A spokesperson said owners had been contacted and urged to vacate in good time so any demolition could be done safely and in a planned way.
Gemma Lomas, whose family has lived in the cottages for four generations, said the news came as a shock. “In 2015, we were told we would have 100 years,” she said. The estimate later fell to 30 years, and she says it could now be a matter of weeks.
The cottages are about 200 years old. The Great Yarmouth Mercury reported that six of the nine at-risk properties are Newport cottages and the other three are on Fakes Road in Hemsby. It quoted council coastal manager Giles Bloomfield confirming nine properties had entered the 10m zone.
The Mercury also reported that the government offers no compensation for erosion losses, and that there are no plans for more sea defences at Hemsby.
The council says the dunes lost about half the erosion predicted for the next 30 years in a single winter, with more than 10m of land going in just over a year. It says 41 properties have been demolished since December 2025.
A trial scheme does offer some homeowners a way to relocate. The Environment Agency gave the council £1.6m last year to buy planning rights from owners of homes at immediate risk, giving them money and permission to rebuild elsewhere.
East Flegg councillor James Bensly, of Great Yarmouth First, said he found it very uncomfortable to see at-risk homes on the market. He added that nobody can stop a sale and urged buyers to research risks first.
Sources: Great Yarmouth Mercury, BBC News
This story was compiled by the MDW Newsdesk with AI-assisted tools, using the reporting credited above.
