church bells / house purchase.. agent failure?

brightonman123

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-17968546

just wondering if the estate agent who sold the house had not known, or maybe had a selective memory, re possible noise from nearby church..

HappyMJ

brightonman123 wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-17968546

just wondering if the estate agent who sold the house had not known, or maybe had a selective memory, re possible noise from nearby church..

The estate agent does not have to mention anything. Any church makes noise. Just because it was being maintained at the time of viewing doesn't mean there is never any noise. My local church rings bells fairly regularly but so what it's a church. Although I would be quite annoyed with a half hourly chime during the night.

motherofstudents

They would get used to it. To be honest I'm not surprised they have got this reaction from locals. Don't go and live near a church if you don't like the bells. Don't live in the countryside if you don't like animal noises etc etc

googler

What are you suggesting, that EAs need to state the breathtakingly, blatantly obvious about every non-residential building or facility within earshot of every house ....

There might be noise from the pub at closing time.
There might be traffic to and from the Supermarket.
There might be delivery lorries going to and from the pub/supermarket/takeaway
The church rings the bells at times
The airplanes make some noise when they take off
There might be noise from the school playground at break and lunch
There may be more traffic than normal at the start and end of the school day
etc
etc

If the buyers of the house can't figure this out for themselves.....

marliepanda

I don't see how its the agents failure. Admittedly I would not expect church bells to ring at night BUT it does say this has been going on for decades, so a tiny bit of research into the village and area would have shown the buyers this.

Plus they are moving very near a church. it should be obvious. I live a good 15 minute walk form York Minster but I can still hear the bells occasionally (thank god not at night :P )

Davesnave

We used to live next door to a church that chimed the quarter hours, and it didn't bother us, but it didn't suddenly happen after we'd moved in, as it did for this couple.

Bell ringing on Thursday evenings and Sundays was a different matter though. That could be an hour of full-on clanging, but it still came with the territory.

Nowadays, people living by our local church have something much worse than the bells to contend with, and that's the rooks which nest in the churchyard trees. I wouldn't live next door to their noise, even at a 25% discount, and I'm not joking!

MsHoarder

marliepanda wrote: »

I don't see how its the agents failure. Admittedly I would not expect church bells to ring at night BUT it does say this has been going on for decades, so a tiny bit of research into the village and area would have shown the buyers this.

Plus they are moving very near a church. it should be obvious. I live a good 15 minute walk form York Minster but I can still hear the bells occasionally (thank god not at night :P )

Seriously? Church bells which are chiming the hour/quarter hour will obviously ring through the night, they are mechanical and don't know whether its 2am or 2pm.

If there was bell-ringing practise after about 9pm then I'd sympathise with the couple, but bells chiming every hour is to be expected from a church.

COLOURBOUNCE

This reminds me of a Tripadvisor complaint when a couple stayed in Fowey. They had to leave accomodation 2 days early as they couldn't put up with the church bells, lack of parking and noise from seagulls. They did complain as they thought the old , listed, fishermans cottage should have been double glazed at the very least. I think the owners response was something like 'bloody townies' .

chris_m

COLOURBOUNCE wrote: »

I think the owners response was something like 'bloody townies' .

And that was probably toned down so it made it through the bad language filters :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:


Mrs. Richards - "When I book a room with a sea view I expect to see the sea"
Basil Fawlty - "You can, it's right there, between the land and the sky"

Callie22

My parents live as close to a church as it's possible to get, and that used to chime the quarter hours every hour, day and night. After complaints from new people in the village the church has done something to the bells so that the chimes are switched off between midnight (I think) and six am, much like it's suggested in the story. That seems like a reasonable compromise.

I have to say though, if you don't like bells, then don't buy a house by a church! But it's ridiculous to make a complaint after a month - you do get used to the bells and when I go home, after a day or so you really don't hear them any more. Bellringing practice on a Thursday is more irritating, especially when you have new people in the team who can't ring in time, but it's only an hour and you can turn the tv/radio up and ignore it.

The church near my parents is quite a famous one and very often on a Saturday afternoon you'll get teams of bellringers coming from all over the country to ring the bells - I think it sounds great and things like that keep traditions alive. Having grown up in the country, it really does irritate me when new people in villages buy their houses because they want 'village life' but then complain about it and do nothing to support it.

HappyMJ

Callie22 wrote: »

My parents live as close to a church as it's possible to get, and that used to chime the quarter hours every hour, day and night. After complaints from new people in the village the church has done something to the bells so that the chimes are switched off between midnight (I think) and six am, much like it's suggested in the story. That seems like a reasonable compromise.

I have to say though, if you don't like bells, then don't buy a house by a church! But it's ridiculous to make a complaint after a month - you do get used to the bells and when I go home, after a day or so you really don't hear them any more. Bellringing practice on a Thursday is more irritating, especially when you have new people in the team who can't ring in time, but it's only an hour and you can turn the tv/radio up and ignore it.

The church near my parents is quite a famous one and very often on a Saturday afternoon you'll get teams of bellringers coming from all over the country to ring the bells - I think it sounds great and things like that keep traditions alive. Having grown up in the country, it really does irritate me when new people in villages buy their houses because they want 'village life' but then complain about it and do nothing to support it.

They only complained as the bells were not ringing for several months due to maintenance then they were turned on again months after they had moved into the property. They did not know they were out of service for maintenance.

The church would like to turn the chimes off during the night but the software of the system does not allow it. They tried modifying it and couldn't so the only option was to turn the chimes off 24/7.