Trying to sell house but problem neighbours

rkh001

:mad:

We have our house up for sale. We live in a 3-bed semi in a wooded close and the house is ex-MOD, about 50 yrs old. We moved in about 2.5 yrs ago and now we want to move but...

...we have had people come to look at the house but have turned it down because of our neighbours. Although you can't see their garden from the ground floor, from upstairs window you can see that they have about 4 mattresses thrown in the garden, not to mention old car engines, old motorbikes, a massive trampoline (their 4 children range from 14 to about 24) and not to mention all the carrier bags etc. They also have a very old caravan park by the side of the house, although you can't see it from our house.

Is there anything we can do? My OH rang the council and they said that unless there is an infestation of rats etc, they are unable to do anything at all! We have considered knocking on their door and asking them to tidy their garden but we could be told where to go!!

Any ideas of what we can do to make our place saleable? Our house has new central heating (there wasn't any when we moved in), new electrics, the whole house was decorated and new carpets. We really would like to sell up ASAP as we have a deadline of end of May to move to a different place (OH's job move) but we don't want to sell it cheap as we have debts to clear and it would be nice to be able to do so.

Thanks

robwend

well you either lie to the council and say you have seen a rat running through your garden, or if you get on with your neighbours run past the idea of <you >cleaning it up. as i dont think they will because if it bothered them they would have done it. id go with idea number 1

rkh001

robwend

That is a good idea. We have 3 people coming to see the house this weekend too and we will see what their response is. If they complain too, then the boys (I mean my OH and his sons) will have to pay the neighbours a visit and offer to remove the stuff for them. We even considered hiring a skip for the day for our old rubbish and if we do do that, then we can ask them to get rid of their mattresses etc.

What a mess!!

TJ27

You can get your council to have a look. You don't have to say you've seen a rat but I guess it might help. Section 4 of the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act is the notice to be served. This can be done if the refuse is LIKELY to harbour rodents. 4 Mattresses certainly fit into this criteria and I myself have served such notices on several occasions under very similar circumstances.

Stuff like car engines and motorbikes are harder to deal with (they tend not to harbour rats) but the hope is that they will get rid of these when they get rid of the other stuff.

Good luck.

d900

sorry to bump this one - my brother has an issue.

he is trying to sell his house, he lives next to a council house and the people in it have no regard for how the house they live in looks.
can he call up the council and get the matress and other stuff removed from the back garden? And more importantly (as this is whats putting people off) the front of the house (top half) is wooden panels that havnt been painted in about 8 years can he get the council to paint them? (as his are nicely painted every 3 years) and next door just looks so naff.

oldMcDonald

d900 wrote: »

sorry to bump this one - my brother has an issue.

he is trying to sell his house, he lives next to a council house and the people in it have no regard for how the house they live in looks.
can he call up the council and get the matress and other stuff removed from the back garden? And more importantly (as this is whats putting people off) the front of the house (top half) is wooden panels that havnt been painted in about 8 years can he get the council to paint them? (as his are nicely painted every 3 years) and next door just looks so naff.

The council are very unlikely to paint their house just to help your brother sell his! Councils usually have a rolling programme with external painting, in our area it seems to be once every 10 years, so there is a chance that your brothers neighbours house is due to be painted soon.

In our HA lease it states that any rubbish accumilated in the garden will be removed at our cost if we do not respond to any letters sent to us about it, so it is probably worth making a complaint just in case they have a similar clause in their lease.

d900

thanks for the help.

i didnt expect the council to try and help him but the estate agent has taken 4 people to see the house and they all got within viewing distance and walked away and the feedback was "they didnt want to live next door to that" ..
the actual people inside seem very nice by all accounts they just dont seem to care much about the house they live in.

oldMcDonald

d900 wrote: »

thanks for the help.

i didnt expect the council to try and help him but the estate agent has taken 4 people to see the house and they all got within viewing distance and walked away and the feedback was "they didnt want to live next door to that" ..
the actual people inside seem very nice by all accounts they just dont seem to care much about the house they live in.

I do feel sorry for your brother, it must be very stressful not being able to sell your house due to your neigbours property.

Sadly, if they do care how the property looks from the outside, a lot of councils have their repainting programme and that is it. Councils require you to ask permission to do any work in/to the house and rarely grant it - even if they did want to paint it the council may not let them.

Using the garden as a dumping ground is another matter and I think he can get something done about that. If the council are disinterested with any complaints your brother makes, then do what was reccomended to the OP and phone up screaming 'RAT!!'

Hope you can get something sorted out soon

d900

hes in 2 minds about moving anyway wants prices to drop so he can get somewhere a lot nicer and save some money

and the world just dosnt want to make its mind up about house prices

f1re_cr4cker

hi if the people next to you are council tennants then they have a duty to keep the house and outdoors area look respectable. (hubby told me this and he is a council solicitor) You need to ring a council housing officer and make a complaint, although saying that it could still take a while for anything to actually be done

maninthestreet

Old motorbikes and car engines in the back garden may well be classed as hazardous waste.