"When you hear people talking about how they used their house like a cash machine, you're probably looking at me," says Mick. "We were living the high life. We ate out well, we got bottles of Bollinger. I should have known better. We treated ourselves to a silver E-class Mercedes."

I suppose that's the value of the license fee... the BBC has the resources to uncover proper, top-notch idiots while the rest of us have to make do with hear-say or, at best, D-list idiots. This one - after losing work and consolidating his debts during the early days of the crisis - ended up with a £250,000 mortgage, negative equity and a Champagne headache. Stay tuned for the BBC's Propertywatch programme (May 11-14, BBC 2, 8pm) for more.

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