A little-known property scheme has made a woman £700 - and it only took her one minute to fill out. The house next door to Ayyesha had been locked-up and abandoned for years.
The mum-of-three said fly-tippers would regularly dump their rubbish in the garden and she had become sick and tired of the 'eyesore'. In a bid to solve the street's woes, she contacted YouSpotProperty.com and made a huge sum.
Under the scheme, people are initially given a £20 voucher for M&S or Amazon for spotting a property that fits into the company's criteria - it is privately owned, not up for sale and no planning permission applied for recently.
READ MORE: Three-bed home with huge garden on sale for £20,000
If YouSpotProperty goes on to purchase that home, then you get a 1% share of the property value, up to £10,000. An estimated 250,000 properties currently stand empty or derelict in England.
Ayyesha told the Mirror : “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.”
She first reported the property in 2022 and received a £20 voucher. The home was then placed on sale - and Ayyesha was gobsmacked to be told she was eligible for £700.
Ayyesha had simply taken photos of the house, uploaded them 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.”
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.”
Find out more here.
