Neighbours house preventing a sale

Cooleragh

Hello

I am wondering if anyone has come across a similar situation and may have some advise.

We have a mid terraced 3 bed which we have extensively modernised and decorated. It's in a lovely area in SE London and in the catchment of good schools.
As we need to move further into Kent for child care arrangements when I return to work (we have a 7 month old), we put our house on the market and received a lot of interest and a number of viewings.!
The problem is, we are attached to a very run down house. The owner is a bit of a hermit and keeps himself to himself, however his house looks derelict.!
We had one couple who sat in their car after a viewing and watched squirrels and pigeons go into the house via holes in the facia boards!
Almost all of the people that viewed said the house next door was a major factor in not putting in an offer on our house.

Now, we know the man that lives there is the owner and we have tried to make contact to ask him to maybe tidy the front, but he avoids all contact with everyone.

Is there anyone we can go to that can "force" him to make his house presentable? We know he has squirrels living in the house as British Gas had to fix pies and when the engineer opened the cupboard under the stairs a few ran out at him!!

Any advise would be appreciated

Thanks

FireWyrm

No you can't force him. His business is his own and none of yours. I'm afraid youre stuck with it.

easilydistracted

I think there are departments of the council that become involved if its a hygiene issue or the house is becoming derelict. I would try having a look on their website.

Owain_Moneysaver

If the house is verminous then Environmental Health may be able to take action to get the vermin removed.

But there's nothing they can do about prettiness though.

It_can_get_better

If it's preventing your house from selling have you considered offering to make it more presentable yourself?

BobQ

Its better to try and speak to him about the situation rather than try to use officialdom.

There is nothing you can do to force him unless the Environmental Health Officer at the Council thinks the house is engangering public health, and efforts to do so may make things more difficult.

If he is simply unwilling to do anything that's his business.

Have you considered that he would like to do something but is not capable of doing it himself and cannot afford to pay someone to do it? Have you considered he might have a mental health problem that makes it difficult to engage with people?

Have you tried speaking to him as he comes or goes or over the back fence?

pixiepie99

I'd speak to the council. Section 215 of the planning act may be an option.

pinkshoes

I'd either offer to pay for the front of his house to be done up, or do it at 3am whilst he's sleeping! Is he really going to call the police and complain that someone has tidied his house up???

olly300

pinkshoes wrote: »

I'd either offer to pay for the front of his house to be done up, or do it at 3am whilst he's sleeping! Is he really going to call the police and complain that someone has tidied his house up???

If you have seen the program on hoarders then yes he may be extremely difficult about you offering to do it for him or getting a firm to do it.

However the council take time to act so the OP's best option is politely ask him herself then if he doesn't want her to or refuses to engage then to go to the council. They will do something about the pigeons as they are vermin but not all councils class squirrels as vermin.

BTW the neighbour clearly needs social services as well as the squirrels are likely to be in the kitchen cupboards as well.

PasturesNew

There are many reasons somebody might live like that. Lack of cash to fix things, fear of strangers coming into their personal space, lack of the skills to be able to contact contractors/get quotes and choose correctly.

Best bet is for you to do the work for him, just to tidy up the front.

You bought next to it - somebody else might. Houses next to that sort of property need to be held onto, you need to outlive the occupant so that your own house can achieve its best potential.

olly300

PasturesNew wrote: »

Best bet is for you to do the work for him, just to tidy up the front.
.

If the front is tidied up the OP is going to have to go for a quick sale.

Unfortunately squirrels don't often move out of their homes once they have made them without force so they will be chewing up the tidied front to get in and out. This means you have to trap and kill them as it's illegal to release grey squirrels back into the wild.

A friend of mine had to get a family removed from his loft as though he blocked up the holes they chewed through to get into their home, where they were chewing electrical cables.

There as when I've had them in my shed one killed herself by crawling into a plastic bag and suffocating, and the next one moved out after she found I had thrown out it's nest and blocked up the holes.