A Bristol father-of-two is facing the heartbreaking prospect of losing the house he bought with money left to him following the death of his dad.

Marcus Lewis, 28, has been told he will be evicted next month from the home in Fishponds he bought outright for £96,000 in 2001 with his inheritance.

He says a series of setbacks he has suffered could lead to his home, now worth £145,000, being seized by a loan company and sold – leaving him with little from the proceeds.

And he believes many of his financial problems have stemmed from his dyslexia – which has affected his ability to understand bills and other important documents.

The builder says his financial woes began in February 2007 when he was made bankrupt for failing to pay a £1,600 annual council tax bill – leaving him with a debt, with added legal fees and interest, of £25,000.

He says things got much worse when his three-bedroom semi in Glendale was devastated by a fire caused by an electrical fault in May the same year.

Mr Lewis was uninsured after he failed to realise his policy had expired and was forced to move out to his girlfriend's parents' home in Sea Mills, where he has been living ever since.

Because he had no money to rebuild the house, he took out a £56,000 bridging loan to clear his bankruptcy debt and rebuild his home, planning to take out a mortgage to immediately pay back the bridging loan.

Although he has almost finished the rebuild, he says the bridging loan company Link Lending has not given him enough time to secure his mortgage with MBS Lending and the firm is now demanding its money back.

The loan company has threatened to evict Mr Lewis on September 2 and sell the home to retrieve its money.

But Mr Lewis believes his home will be sold by Link Lending at a low price at auction and, with added legal fees, fears he will be left with hardly anything.

He says he had always relied on his mother to sort out his finances but when she moved to Turkey, things began to go wrong and council tax bills went unpaid.

Mr Lewis, whose father died when he was 10 years old, is calling for the loan company to give him more time to get his finances straight.

He said: "I was away in Spain working for a month and I came back and I had been made bankrupt. There didn't seem to be any reason for it because I had offered to make payments to the council. My mum had moved to Turkey and she had always handled all of that sort of thing in the past. I had so much mounting paperwork and I didn't understand it and I didn't have legal representation.

"I have spoken to the Citizens Advice Bureau and have a meeting with them. I'm worried that if Link Lending takes my house and sells it, I will only be left with about £15,000. I'm in a really big hole."

Yvonne Parks, senior case worker at Bristol Debt Advice Centre in St Philip's, said help was available to Mr Lewis and he could take steps to stop his home being repossessed.

She said: "With the bankruptcy, there are plenty of things he could have done to stop that happening.

"Once the loan company has issued legal proceedings, there has to be a hearing at the county court. At that stage he is able to give proposals for payment. There will be repayment arrangements available – it's unlikely a judge will give possession to a lender."

A spokesman for Link Lending, which is based in Watford, declined to comment.