'Our dream house went up in flames just four hours after we got the keys'

'Our dream house went up in flames just four hours after we got the keys' Leane Burns and her partner John Webster left their house for less than 40 minutes to collect food, but when they returned the fire had engulfed the kitchen forcing them to moved out A family watched as their "forever home" went up in flames four hours after they got the keys. Leane Burns, 43, and her partner John Webster, 42, completed on their four-bed detached house on May, 2, 3034 near Southampton, Hampshire. The couple collected the keys shortly after 1pm and moved their belongings into the property with the help of a removal company. But after leaving the house for less than 40 minutes to collect food at around 5pm, they returned to find their new home on fire. The fire was eventually traced to the electric hob, with investigators believing it may have been accidentally switched on while furniture and boxes were being moved into the property. The couple, their daughter Isabelle, then three, and dog Jessie spent five months moving between hotels and Airbnb rentals while they tried to restore the house - spending £11,000 on emergency accommodation. The couple eventually moved back into the property on October 22, 2024 - just two weeks before Leane gave birth to their second daughter Cecily on November 6. Leane, a content creator, said: "This was meant to be our forever home. Everything had gone really smoothly. We'd completed by 11.30am, collected the keys just after 1pm and I even filmed an empty house tour. "The removal men started bringing everything in at about 2pm and finished just after 5pm. We'd picked up our daughter from childcare and all gone to get something to eat. "We'd only been gone about 35 or 40 minutes when a neighbour called to say there was black smoke coming from the house. I remember thinking, 'It can't be that bad, can it? We've not been gone long.' "Then a fire officer came out carrying our dog Jessie. We'd rescued her from Greece in 2016 and she'd been asleep on the sofa. She'd only just escaped. It was just shock. It felt surreal. I thought, this can't be real. We'd owned the house for about five hours." The couple had spent nine months selling their previous home and organising the move before getting the keys. Leane, who was 12 weeks pregnant at the time and suffering with hyperemesis, got a call from a neighbour warning them smoke was pouring from one of the windows. They rushed back to find fire crews tackling a blaze that had ripped through the kitchen. Although the blaze was largely contained to the kitchen, thick smoke and soot spread throughout the 1,800sq ft home, damaging virtually every room and thousands of pounds worth of possessions. John, an operations manager for an electrical contracting firm, was escorted through the property once the fire had been extinguished. He said: "The floors were swimming with water and all the ceilings were black. "They told me we'd have no gas, no electrics and couldn't stay there. The kitchen was completely black. The smell caught your throat and there was heat everywhere. "They asked if I had any idea what had caused it and I said, 'I've had the keys for five hours. We haven't even put the kettle on.' They believed it started on the hob. The knobs protruded from the front and it looked like one may have been accidentally turned while boxes were being moved." That evening the family checked into a dog-friendly hotel while waiting for their insurance provider to arrange emergency help. But they claim they struggled to get assistance over the bank holiday weekend and were forced to source and fund temporary accommodation themselves. The couple also claim their damaged home was left unsecured for several days after an emergency contractor failed to fully board up the property. John said: "The kitchen window was boarded up but the front door had been smashed in by firefighters and wasn't secured. "We were six miles away in a hotel and all of our worldly possessions were sitting in an empty house. It was left like that until after the bank holiday weekend." Leane said: "We didn't know from one week to the next where we were going to be living. "We were spending around £1,000 a week on Airbnbs. I was pregnant, diabetic and suffering from hyperemesis. I was being sick three or four times a day and the stress made everything worse. "When you leave one Airbnb at 10am and can't get into the next until later, it was exhausting. We couldn't meal prep, we were constantly living out of bags and trying to keep everything together for our daughter." The family say the claims process became a lengthy battle. John said it took six weeks before decontamination work began, while smoke and soot continued to affect the property. He said: "When I went back after the first clean, I was shaking with rage. We'd been told there would be no soot residue, but Isabelle's toys were still covered in it. "I could run my fingers along shelves and windowsills and they came away black. There was broken glass still in the kitchen and burnt debris left in the sink. "The soot was so corrosive it had started damaging metal surfaces, like the stainless steel sink, around the house." The couple also discovered some possessions had been thrown into a skip outside without their knowledge. John said: "You walk up to your own property and there's a skip full of your belongings. Things had just been binned without telling us. We felt like we had to fight for everything." The family eventually took their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service over the handling of the claim and say they secured increased settlements and compensation after challenging several valuations for damaged items. The family finally moved back home on October 22, 2024. Two weeks later, on November 6, Leane gave birth to Cecily. Despite being back in the house, the couple say they are still discovering items they lost in the fire. Leane said: "We had boxes of things we'd hoped to pass down from Isabelle to Cecily that we lost. Two weeks before she was born we were ordering essentials online because we still didn't have everything we needed. "There are things we haven't replaced because we don't even remember they were there until we need them. Some things you can replace, but some things you just can't. "I don't think we've properly processed what's happened and we still don't know the full extent of what we lost."