Nearly £50,000 has been raised to keep a young mum and her baby living in the house her fiance spent eight months building before he died.
Plumber Jack Guilfoyle, 30, worked ‘night and day’ renovating the first home he and partner Tiff Randall, 26, bought together.
But just two months after moving in, Jack died from complications following heart surgery – which he had been delaying because of the work on the house.
Due to his pre-existing medical condition, Jack was unable to get life insurance meaning primary school teacher, Tiff, who is currently on maternity leave, has been struggling to pay the mortgage alone.
However, Jack’s uncle Jeremy Guilfoyle, 56, set up a GoFundMe appeal to support Tiff and her 12-week-old daughter, Hazel, to stay in the home Jack had put so much work into.
And in just three days, the fundraiser has already raised more than £47,000 – enough to cover the mortgage for almost three years.
Jeremy described the young couple, who had known each other since school and started dating in 2016 and got engaged in 2022, as ‘true soul mates’.
Jack and Tiff, who had planned to get married this summer bought the £267,000 terrace home in Wareham, Dorset, last April and moved in just before Christmas following the birth of their daughter, Hazel, in November.
Instead of preparing for their wedding, however, Tiff is having to arrange Jack’s funeral after his death on February 6, seven days after having heart surgery.
Jack’s mum Vivien also had a similar heart condition and was diagnosed when she was 50 before dying in 2017 aged 61.
He had his first major heart surgery in July 2023 after becoming unwell and discovering he had an aortic root aneurysm.
The operation had went well and he made a good recovery, allowing the couple to buy their first home before baby Hazel was born in November.
Jack worked on the house every moment he could to get it finished with his brother and friends – even delaying his next heart surgery to get it done.
Jeremy, 56, said the mortgage payments for the Dorset home are £1,337 a month and they initially wanted to raise enough to cover at least a year or two, which they have already achieved.
Thanking the work of Jeremy who is helping Jack’s ‘final wish’ be realised, Tiff said: ‘I’m so grateful to our family for organising this to help us keep the home Jack worked so incredibly hard to provide for us.
‘I know his final wish was for us to have a home for our beautiful daughter and I can’t wait to share all the wonderful memories I have of Jack with her in it.’
Ideally, Jeremy said he hopes Tiff can pay the mortgage off completely so that she didn’t have to worry about this again.
‘Tiff is obviously in bits,’ he said.
‘She has a strong network and lots of emotional support but financially she left everything to Jack.
‘The goal of this fundraiser is to raise money directly for Tiff, so that she and baby Hazel can remain in the home that Jack worked so hard to build for them.
‘Ideally I would like her to be able to pay off the mortgage so she doesn’t have to worry.
‘I want her to have the position that any new mum would have if a father died with life insurance. I know if I died tomorrow my family’s fine because I have life insurance, but Tiff can’t have that.’
‘Jack had surgery in 2023, it was serious surgery but he made a good recovery and he and Tiff were planning for the future.
‘A few months back he started to feel a bit unwell again and recognised the signs. They did a few tests and found evidence of internal bleeding.
‘He went in for a second operation, it was no more serious than what he had the first time.
‘But once they started operating they discovered much more damage than they were expecting – he was in surgery for 18 hours.
‘He was put on life support and after five days they gradually started taking him off to see if his body would kick in and for a very brief period it did, his heart was beating for itself, but it just couldn’t cope.
‘The hospital were fantastic, the level of care I can’t fault.
Jeremy also told how hard Jack had worked to transform the house for his fiancee and daughter.
‘When he bought the house it was a mess. Jack and his brother and friends spent all their spare time doing it up,’ his uncle added.
‘In the last few months he knew he needed surgery again and he put it off a bit because he was determined to get the house finished and get Tiff and Hazel in for Christmas.
‘It was so important for him to know he had done that. I think he had more awareness of his mortality than the rest of us did.
‘The point of the campaign is about giving Tiff that long term support. Because of his medical condition, Jack couldn’t get life insurance.
‘I cannot believe the response, I’ve never done this before and I keep refreshing and it just keeps going up.
‘I know Tiff is very grateful for everything everyone is doing. It is a brutal situation.’