A MUM who pocketed £700 by dobbing in her neighbour intends to splash the cash on a big party.
The house next door to mum-of-three Ayyesha had been locked up and abandoned for so long fly-tippers would dump their rubbish in the garden.
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Ayyesha, from Smethwick, West Midlands, received the money for simply reporting the derelict home, which will now be done up so someone can move in.
The 29-year-old, who works as a manager for student accommodation, contacted YouSpotProperty.com after she became fed up of the “neighbourhood eyesore”.
YouSpotProperty.com pays money to the public for reporting abandoned properties in England.
If the property meets 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.
Around 250,000 properties are thought to 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.
She said no action was taken and fly-tippers eventually started dumping their rubbish, including mattresses, in the front garden.
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The mum added: “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.”
When Ayyesha initially reported the home to YouSpotProperty last year she got a £20 voucher.
However, after the property had been tidied up and put for sale, she said she was amazed when she got an email saying she was in line for £700.
All she had done was taken a photo of the home and uploaded it to the company website with YouSpotProperty carrying out 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.
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.”
From disruptive planning permission to noise complaints, you can tackle the issue of nuisance neighbours though your local council.
If you have tried and failed to resolve your neighbourly issue by talking to your neighbour you can approach your local council.
Your local council can step in if the dispute involves any activity that is a nuisance or could damage your health.
To complain all you need to do is contact your local council, many have a specialist team to deal with disputes of this nature.
This can cover things like artificial light or a build up of rubbish that could possibly cause harm.
Bare in mind that just because you find a noise or habit irritating, it does not mean your neighbour is causing a statutory nuisance.
