The payment came from YouSpotProperty.com which issues vouchers and cash rewards to people who report empty and derelict houses in their neighbourhoods
Lisandra had recently quit her job when she received a call telling her she was being awarded £1,770 – just from reporting an empty property.
The payment came from YouSpotProperty.com which issues vouchers and cash rewards to people who report empty and derelict houses in their neighbourhoods.
If the property meets the eligibility criteria, then you will initially be awarded a £20 voucher for M&S or Amazon – but if YouSpotProperty goes on to purchase that home, then you get a 1% share of the property value, up to £10,000.
Lisandra, 37, of Crawley, spotted the abandoned property while walking to her local bus stop. She said: “As I like gardening, what caught my attention was that the garden of this 1980s/90s corner-located semi-detached property was heavily overgrown.
“Upstairs windows on the first floor were covered with OSB boards, and the bins always appeared to be in exactly the same place. I just knew the house was unoccupied.
“Then I remembered YouSpotProperty and I thought to myself, ‘why not?’ I’ll report the house, I have nothing to lose, if I don’t get a voucher fine, but at best £20 is a good reward for doing very little.“
It came at a good time for Lisandra, who recently resigned from a job which she wasn’t enjoying. The £1,770 she received from YouSpotProperty was enough to cover another month’s living expenses while she continued to look for new work.
Lisandra, who is originally from Portugal but has lived in the UK for the past 13 years, said: “All this happened while I was in the process of leaving my job, and going for many interviews.
“I’d missed a call and saw a voicemail which I thought might have been an invitation to another interview. The first opportunity I had to listen to the voicemail was on the bus home, and I could barely hear the message, because of surrounding noise and bad reception.“
She continued: “It was a sign that resigning was the right thing to do, as the cash has tied me over another month and given me the freedom to secure a new job.
“The money was like an extra salary and meant I could stay home for a few more weeks – a bit of a miracle. I’ve always believed life brings you what you need when you really need it, in my case it came at a fantastic time for me.”
Lisandra and her partner, who works at nearby Gatwick Airport, are currently renovating their house, so anything spare from her payment will be spent on their DIY project.
YouSpotProperty has so far rewarded members of the public more than £1million in the form of thousands of vouchers and the top 1% of the property price reward. Lisandra has since reported another property.
Ben Radstone, co-founder of YouSpotProperty.com, said: “Lisandra’s story is a reminder of the power and potential of involving local communities in the benefits of getting their empty and derelict houses back into use.
“This particular house was owned by a married couple, although they had been separated for longer than year and were in dispute over the property. As such, they had stopped paying the mortgage for over a year and the bank had started repossession proceedings.
“We mediated between both the husband and wife to come to an agreement on a sale of the property within a three-week period, and helped avoid repossession.
“Furthermore, the first floor which was boarded up, was apparently due to fire damage. If we didn’t intervene, this house would have continued to crumble and remain out of use.”
