A mum-of-three who lived next door to a locked-up and abandoned house for so long that fly-tippers would regularly dump their rubbish in the garden, was handed £700 for reporting it.
Ayyesha was left baffled when she was handed £700 for reporting the derelict property. It is now set to be done up for someone new to move in.
The 29-year-old contacted YouSpotProperty.com after becoming fed up of the “neighbourhood eyesore”, reports the Mirror.
The website pays members for reporting abandoned homes. If the property you find meets the eligibility criteria - it is privately owned, not up for sale and no planning permission applied for recently - then you will initially be given a £20 voucher for M&S or Amazon.
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However, if YouSpotProperty purchase the property then you get a 1% share of the property value, up to £10,000.
Ayyesha said: “We know from neighbours that the owner had once lived in it years back, yet for the past five years that we’ve lived next door, it had been left unoccupied - he’d returned maybe once a year only to sweep the front step.
“No one wanted to help, she said. No action was taken. Fly-tippers eventually started dumping mattresses on the front garden and this went on for nearly five years.
“We knew who the owner was and tried to track him down, but he failed to respond to any of our concerns, much to our frustration.”
Ayyesha first reported the property to YouSpotProperty in 2022 and received a £20 voucher.
To her amazement, the property was later tidied and placed on sale - and Ayyesha was stunned to receive an email from YouSpotProperty saying she was eligible for £700.
Ayyesha had simply taken photos of the house, uploaded it to the company website and YouSpotProperty went on to investigate it.
She said: “When something is too good to be true, it usually is, however, I called YouSpotProperty following the email and was immediately answered by their finance controller who said ‘you must be Ayyesha’ – I was gobsmacked and overjoyed.
“Initially, I thought I would be getting another voucher, following the £20 Amazon one I received in 2022 for spotting the house – I hadn’t clocked the 1% reward incentive linked to the firm actually purchasing the property.”
Ayyesha added: “I’m 30 this year, I didn’t have an 18th or a 21st, so this money will definitely go towards a celebration this year.”
To date, the firm has paid out 133 reward fees for homes they eventually went onto buy, before placing them back into use.
YouSpotPropert.com co-founder, Nick Kalms, said: “Dealing with empty homes is one of the most complex situations to resolve for local communities, as the reason they fall into this position is often so varied.
“Mostly, it’s near impossible to locate and speak to owners as they can’t easily be traced. We have a specialist team to deal with just this element.
“Often, houses are the subject of long and complicated probate following the death of an individual, and they can sit empty for years.
“Councils have limited powers and resources to allocate to this which is why they end up blighting neighbourhoods – and this is where we step in.”
