THE £3 million Ringwood mega-home competition is now being ‘assessed’ by the Advertising Standards Authority after it confirmed it had received 14 complaints.

The standards watchdog confirmed to the BBC that it was looking into complaints about the competition in which ticket sales totalled £750,000 but only £110,000 was paid out.

Owners Mark and Sharon Beresford put their Huf Haus up for a competition in which entrants had to answer a question and pay a £25 fee for a chance to win the property which the couple had failed to sell conventionally.

The prize was drawn on New Year’s Eve and paid to an anonymous winner.

The Beresfords say the alternative prize fully complied with competition rules and laws.

ASA Investigations manager Andrew Bruce said: “The rules say you need to offer the prize or a reasonable equivalent.

“The onus is on the promoter to make sure that if you want to offer a house as the central prize in this promotion, you need to make sure you can deliver on that promise.”

The ASA said it had received 14 complaints about Win A Megahome Limited that it was in “the early stages of assessing”.

After the competition closed at the end of the year, the Beresfords announced that ‘almost 30,000’ tickets had been sold.

Under the terms and conditions, if fewer than 175,000 tickets were sold, a cash prize would be offered instead and the couple would be allowed to keep a quarter of the revenue, with the rest going as prize money, minus the costs of promotion.

The Beresfords have said they will be filing their accounts in line with the statutory regulations.