Following on from their story in the Daily Mail, Charles Cole, wife Iona and children Hedley, Elizabeth, May and Charity were filmed LIVE from their Manor House for ITV’s Daybreak.
Viewers were treated to a mini tour of their stunning nine bedroom home, set in over 200 acres of rolling Devonshire countryside. We saw for ourselves the beautiful drawing room with its huge inglenook fireplace, the wood-panelled dining room and their enormous kitchen with its aga and traditional scrubbed wooden table.
Iona told the Daybreak reporter how life has changed dramatically since Charles lost almost £5million – in a bid to raise money for rising public school fees, he remortgaged the £2.25m Manor House and some 84 buy to let properties they owned – in a property investment in Romania, which went wrong.
The family she said, are fortunate enough to be able to keep chickens and eat their own home-grown vegetables because the family, currently paying £12,500 a month on the loan, are virtually penniless.
She and Charles are upset by the attitude of their bank. It wants the loan repaid in full by April or it has warned them it will repossess their home and properties. Charles believes having never defaulted on a bill in his life, it should give them more time to pursue a legal case examining where their investment money went.
Since going public the family have been inundated with well wishers – one lady has even offered to knit them jumpers!
Sister site Featureworld is now hoping to confirm a documentary for the Coles who wanted to get their story out into the public domain to expose their treatment by their bank.
