Neighbour from hell causing prob's with sale

Paulgonnabedebtfree

Duckie wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, we've tried several times to knock on her door, but she refuses to open the door. She lives alone and never gets any visitors.

Does anyone think she will have a case in Court? She is yet to proof that there is any unacceptable noise from our flat. We don't want to go that way, but sometimes out of desperation we wonder whether we should sue her for the stress she has caused and if she causes our sale to fall through for the damages as we wouldn't get as high an offer again in the current market and would then stand to make a loss.

You've got a problem whichever way things go. If I were thinking of buying your property firstly I would want to make sure that the floor didn't creak. However, even if the floor IS fine, that would be superceded by the fact that I wouldn't want to live above such a crank.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

poet123

Push a very carefully worded gushing letter under her door(dont admit any liability)concentrate on asking her how you can resolve the issue,mention your personal problems etc. Use emotive language and try to reach her,she will have a past,and most people do have a heart,no matter how deeply buried it is!!! Shower her with kindess,it is very difficult for even the most cantankerous to continue to be obstructive when you are being so very very nice.

Normally I would say stand and fight,but under the circumstances you do not need this stress,and need to resolve it quickly and with as little rancour as possible. She may be a bully,but there ismore than one way to skin a cat as they say. ....softly softly catchee monkey

Ask around the neighbourhood someone may know more about her,has she done similar with previous tenants etc,has she any relatives locally?
If you do decide to go down the court route it will be long winded,and if she has no money where are the damages going to come from? even if she has money,she may be very stubborn and be prepared to go to jail rather than pay up.

hethmar

How very strange that she should wait to complain when she sees you are selling up. I wonder if she is worried who may come there. My son has a similar prob with his neighbour downstairs. Whatever he does she complains and seems to be fixated on him. Fortunately he is moving this week. That particular woman complained about noises even when he was out of the country! I wonder if this is similar and she is hearing noises from another flat?

I do have sympathy with you. and no, I dont think she has a case in court. You have done everything possible to aleviate a problem, IF one existed and you should get a letter from the carpenter to say everything has been done that could be done. Let her try to take you to court - she has no grounds and it will cost her a lot of money.

However, the bigger problem is that this buyer will probably back out from living above such a misery. Can you find out if she has complained to anyone else in the flats about anything? If she is a serial complainer that will also go against her. Have you offered mediation - check with the CAB about it - if she refuses thats another black mark.

I do hope you can sort this out. Possibly you could move out, let your place and rent somewhere else?

poet123

You could take the opposite tack. Tell her that you have had enough of the stress,and that you are moving out and will be renting out the flat. Imply that you have had interest from several parties including people with a baby,drumkit and any other type of folk who are likely to give her pause for thought. Tell her it is such a shame as the buyers were buddhists who dont wear shoes and meditate in silence a lot!!

Zelie

Point out that you are about to take up Irish dancing and would love to move far away so that you don't disturb her but until she withdraws the dispute you can't move. Then get your clogs on and practice like mad.

Darth_Marty

How about a bit of reverse psychology. Go down and see her but make it clear and in no uncertain terms that you will be the neighbours from hell unless she drops it. Crank up the sound at odd times, jump up and down on the floorboards and basically make it known that unless she stops being a bit ch you will make this game far more even.

May be worth a try.

PasturesNew

I've heard that talcum powder between floorboards stops them creaking. It means dragging the carpet up, but worth a go. Also, it might just be the boards that are most often trodden on. e.g. the area near the door and the common walkways.

Might be worth a shot.

John_Pierpoint

The downstairs neighbour sounds like a "nutter", who is being exploited by her solicitor.
(I had great "fun" once by refusing to write back to the solicitor but kept on writing to the absentee "neighbour" personally. Every time I would point out that the solicitor had [strike]wasted[/strike] spent more of the neighbour's money.
However I was pretty sure there was no case to answer and it was a classic case of a solicitor milking the situation.
Got some nasty letters from the solicitor personally and I knew I was winning.)

Duckie

Hi guys, thanks for all the useful comments, definitely food for thought. I think the temptation would be if our sale falls through anyway, to take up Irish dancing, as suggested. I suspect that we have been too nice and therefore easy to bully. Will never buy a place again unless if I have met the neighbours (I think this type of people give off a certain vibe). Otherwise, I'll have to look for a 'godfather' who can make her an 'offer that she can't refuse'.

ruggedtoast

Simon_P wrote: »

Under the circumstances, have you considered making a counter claim of harassment against this neighbour? It might just shut her up being that you have all the solicitors letters & Freeholder confirming the trivial complaints she is making.

I certainly would not advise contacting her directly or to write her a letter, if i were in your situation i think i'd be taking a much tougher line with her by now as you have done everything that could be expected to address her complaint & even when it is resolved she is still being very unreasonable.

This.

What a loon. Of course her solicitor is sending you letters. Shes paying them to do so, they dont give a monkeys whether she has a case in court as long as they keep getting her cash.

Can you rent the place out in the meantime. At least then you wont be living above her.

Edit - this just reminded me I have German friends in Berlin who have a similar problem. Their neighbour is some weird old crank who has telephoned and made countless complaints to the freeholders of their apartment block about them. One time she complained that they were eating an apple and it was too loud.

Shes had the police out about them for nothing, and has also had coach stops rerouted away from their entire street after 7pm because she thought it was too noisy (they live in central Berlin - its the equivalent of saying coaches cant stop in Edgware Road) ,she had started to sue the coach company for emotional distress.

There are some out there.