A half-built house belonging to an Oxford businessman at the centre of a benefits scam has become a magnet for fly-tippers and rats, according to neighbours.

The detached house, in Ashhurst Way, Rose Hill, is one of 60 in the city belonging to Mohammed Faruq, who netted more than £500,000 in an asylum benefits scam by housing his relatives and charging Oxfordshire County Council for emergency asylum accommodation.

Pensioner Reg Morley, who lives opposite the unfinished house in Lambourne Road, said the situation was beyond a joke.

He said: "I think everyone is fed up about it. I live opposite and I've seen rats about. It's also being used as a dumping ground.

"The council has put wire netting up, which is totally inadequate. With the housing shortage we have, it's ridiculous that it's standing there empty. But it seems we're powerless to do anything."

Ed Turner, a city councillor for Rose Hill and Littlemore, said the council could only take action to force the completion of a house when it had been vacant for five years. Even then, getting a completion order was a lengthy process, he added.

He said: "We're really over a barrel on this one. The council doesn't have any real powers to deal with it.

"It's a real blot on the area. The fact it's on a main road through Rose Hill is extremely frustrating."

Faruq owns a nearby corner plot at the junction of Ashhurst Way and Jersey Road, which has also become a site for fly-tipping.

Mr Turner said planning officers were set to issue an enforcement order demanding it is cleaned up.

Faruq, 56, of Whitson Place, east Oxford, was involved in a conspiracy in which he and 15 of his relatives were convicted of fraud and immigration offences.

He admitted conspiracy to help relatives gain asylum in the UK by deception, and conspiracy to defraud councils and agencies of benefits, and was jailed last week for four years.

The case, which began with police raids in July 2004, ended last Tuesday when the final five defendants pleaded guilty at Oxford Crown Court.