Having a Balkan

Family quits UK to buy £23,000 mortgage-free home in Bulgaria

- BY EMMA DUNN

A FAMILY of six have left the UK and bought a £23,000 house in Bulgaria where they live mortgage-free.

Amy Smerdon, 35, and her husband Jerry, 53, were fed up with renting but could not afford a mortgage in Britain.

Last year the couple bought a three-bedroom holiday home in Bulgaria for £7,000.

But after Amy got inheritance cash when her grandad died the family bought a new three-bed home in December, with a warehouse and 2,000 sq m of land.

Jerry, who runs a vape shop and ice cream parlour in the UK, converted the 25m by 15m warehouse in Popovo into a home earlier this year. The family hope to move into it by December.