A mother who pocketed £700 by reporting her neighbour to authorities intends to spend the money on a big party.
The house next door to mum-of-three Ayyesha had been locked up and abandoned for so long that fly-tippers persistently dumped their rubbish in the garden.
Ayyesha, 29, of Smethwick, West Midlands, received the money for simply reporting the derelict home, which will now be renovated and restored to allow a new occupant to move in.
The 29-year-old, who works as a manager for student accommodation, contacted YouSpotProperty.com after she became disgruntled with what she described as a ‘neighbourhood eyesore’.
The money was paid out by YouSpotProperty.com, which pays money to the public for reporting abandoned properties in England.
The money was paid out by YouSpotProperty.com, which pays money to the public for reporting abandoned properties in England
If any reported property meet their criteria – it is privately owned, not on the market and no planning permission has been applied for recently – then the person who alerts them is initially given a £20 voucher for either M&S or Amazon.
However, if YouSpotProperty.com then goes on to buy the home, that person then gets a one per cent share of the property value, up to £10,000.
As many as 250,000 properties are thought to currently stand empty or derelict in England.
Ayyesha stated: ‘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.
She said no action was taken, which resulted in fly-tippers dumping their rubbish, including articles such as mattresses, in the front garden next door.
‘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’, she said, according to The Mirror.
Ayyesha said she received a £20 voucher, after initially reporting the home to YouSpotProperty in 2022.
However, after the property had been cleaned and re-listed on the market for sale, she said she was amazed after receiving an email stating that she could receive a £700 payout.
All Ayyesha did was take a photo of the home and upload it to the company website, before YouSpotProperty launched their own investigation.
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 one per cent reward incentive linked to the firm actually purchasing the property.’
She added that she didn’t have an 18th or 21st birthday party but as she was turning 30 this year she was putting the money towards a celebration.
In the past decade YouSpotProperty has ‘rescued’ more than 100 empty homes with the company handing out 8,189 £20 vouchers.
So far, it has paid out 133 reward fees for homes they ultimately went onto buy, before putting them back into use.
The largest one per cent recipient is Paul Woodley, from Hertfordshire, who was paid £10,000 in 2017 after YouSpotProperty completed the purchase of a property worth £1.15million.
In the past decade YouSpotProperty has ‘rescued’ more than 100 empty homes with the company handing out 8,189 £20 vouchers
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.’
This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk
