A DAD pocketed £4,000 in free cash – simply for blabbing about his neighbour to the council.
Tony Jordan, 61, a former London fireman and taxi driver, had come across the house on his walk to his local bus stop with the property visibly derelict and with an overgrown front garden.
Tony told the Mirror: “The three bed end-of-terrace had paint peeling off the woodwork and the house was crying out to be made over.
“It was such a mess you couldn’t have delivered mail to the front door.
“No one would live in a house that looked hard to even gain access to, so I uploaded the house to YouSpotProperty.”
YouSpotProperty pays people for reporting derelict and long-term empty properties in England.
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A while later he got the £20 voucher and then a few weeks after that he got a call saying the home had been sold.
And just a few weeks later, he got a call saying he was getting £4,350.
And while he was convinced it was just a scam, the married father-of-two, who lives in Pinner, north west London, was gobsmacked when the money landed in his bank account.
Tony said: “Alarm bells sounded in my head when I was asked for my banking details. Yet, unlike many horror stories when people are asked by random firms for their banking details, this was fully legitimate.”
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He said he would put the money towards a holiday in New York and New England in the United States next year.
Under the scheme, if the property you find meets the eligibility criteria, then you are sent a £20 voucher for either Amazon or M&S.
But if the firm goes on and buys the home, then you get a 1 per cent share of the property value, up to £10,000.
For a property to qualify it must be privately owned, not up for sale and had no planning permission applied for recently.
HOW IT WORKS
If you spot a property that you think meets the criteria all you have to do is go to the YouSpotProperty.com website and upload some details about it, along with some photos.
The company’s criteria are: The property must be privately owned, not up for sale and had no planning permission applied for recently.
If those conditions are met, you’ll be sent a voucher worth £20 for either Amazon or M&S.
Should YouSpotProperty go on to purchase the home, you then get 10 per cent its value, up to a maximum of £10,000.
In England, there are currently more than 250,000 properties standing empty or derelict.
Tony, who is semi-retired but still works part-time as a fire safety officer, got his payout after YouSpotProperty tracked down the owners of the house he had reported and eventually bought it for £435,000.
YouSpotProperty gets between 350 to 400 property reports each week and dishes out 110 £20 vouchers on average a month.
So far, Paul Woodley of Hertfordshire is the largest 1 per cent recipient, getting £10,000 in 2017 after YouSpotProperty bought a house worth £1.15million.
In June this year, mum Levinia Gluck raked in £6,500 for highlighting a home in Hendon, North London.
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