Reason sellers were moving and noisy neighbours - update

Gwenrose

I know just how you feel.

We moved from our last house because the neighbour had a sound system that left you feeling sick in the pit of your stomach with the base. We went round very friendly and asked if he realised the base was a bit of a problem through the wall. He said he had not had complaints before and we were being difficult, later we found out that the couple we bought from moved because of him. After we tried to ask him nicely, his kids started spitting at my kids over the garden fence and shouting and swearing at them. My poor children became to scared to go into the garden and it was like living in hell, so we sold and moved. Apparently the new owner of our property went round and punched the neighbour in the nose for being a pain in the a...., things went quiet after that I heard.

We've been in our house for 25 years and last Easter the family from hell bought the property next door. Plants pulled up in front gardens, balls kicked over property braking pots, lanterns and god knows any thing they could aim at. Cars scratched by bikes, screeming, shouting and to add to it all I was attacked by their dog and badly scared, we insisted the dog was destroyed when the owner showed us scares the dog had inflicted on him and it had even bitten his own children. Things went from bad to worse and we were adviced by the EHO to sell and move. Well we have tried, but some one must love us because our neighbour has sold his house and they are moving, hopefully to the moon. We still want to sell and move, at least when they have gone we will actualy stand a chance.

But don't give up and move until you have tried every avenue to sort the problem, I have seen reports that if all the neighbours get together and all complain the council can evict them, even if they own their own property.

Good luck, hope you can resolve the problem.

GracieP

How serious do problems have to be before you disclose them? Our neighbours on one side used to be quite loud often playing loud music. We would ask them to turn it down and they would be very nice and say of course but an hour later or the next day it would be back up.

After a while it escalated and we told them we would have to call the council. The response was "I don't care, off you go." So the next time it was noisy we did. The council response was instant, they called out within 20 minutes assessed the noise and issued a warning to the neighbours, telling them a 2nd violation would result in an abatement order and a 3rd in prosecution.

That was in January and they have kept it down ever since. We still hear them, but it's the usual you expect in a terraced house. However the mother in the family hates us. We still get on fine with her kids who love paying with our dogs.

We were thinking of selling our house next spring. Do I have to disclose this to the potential buyers. It will be over a year since they were issued with the warning and though the mother hates us, she hates US, not the occupants of the house.

eco-friendly_2

Gwenrose wrote: »

I know just how you feel.

We moved from our last house because the neighbour had a sound system that left you feeling sick in the pit of your stomach with the base. We went round very friendly and asked if he realised the base was a bit of a problem through the wall. He said he had not had complaints before and we were being difficult, later we found out that the couple we bought from moved because of him. After we tried to ask him nicely, his kids started spitting at my kids over the garden fence and shouting and swearing at them. My poor children became to scared to go into the garden and it was like living in hell, so we sold and moved. Apparently the new owner of our property went round and punched the neighbour in the nose for being a pain in the a...., things went quiet after that I heard.

We've been in our house for 25 years and last Easter the family from hell bought the property next door. Plants pulled up in front gardens, balls kicked over property braking pots, lanterns and god knows any thing they could aim at. Cars scratched by bikes, screeming, shouting and to add to it all I was attacked by their dog and badly scared, we insisted the dog was destroyed when the owner showed us scares the dog had inflicted on him and it had even bitten his own children. Things went from bad to worse and we were adviced by the EHO to sell and move. Well we have tried, but some one must love us because our neighbour has sold his house and they are moving, hopefully to the moon. We still want to sell and move, at least when they have gone we will actualy stand a chance.

But don't give up and move until you have tried every avenue to sort the problem, I have seen reports that if all the neighbours get together and all complain the council can evict them, even if they own their own property.

Good luck, hope you can resolve the problem.

Recently heard a story about a young guy who was making his downstairs neighbour's life a misery, the neighbour ( a growler ) chapped the young guy's door, when the door opened shoved his way in, disconnected the stereo and threw it out of the second floor window .:T

kunekune

Gracie, my understanding is that if you say nothing and no-one asks, then you are ok because you have not deliberately misled the purchaser. Everyone has different levels of tolerance of music, and a purchaser takes the risk that a neighbour you are fine with will be too loud for them. However, the OP is in a slightly different position, because the vendor actually lied to them, saying that it was a minor problem when they seem to have known perfectly well that it wasn't, as documented by official complaints. SO that was a case of a deliberate misrepresentation, whereas you are proposing silence. Silence is generally ok, unless you the purchaser says something like "I am so glad to be moving here; my last flat was terribly noisy, I am very sensitive and even when they played Classic FM I got upset". Then, you know that they are buying the property on the basis of a misunderstanding about how quiet it is, and you would probably have an obligation to put them right.

Doozergirl

kunekune wrote: »

Gracie, my understanding is that if you say nothing and no-one asks, then you are ok because you have not deliberately misled the purchaser.

There is a question about disputes with neighbours in the SPIF so you can't escape it. It would generally be true that if they don't ask and you don't say then it's their problem, but there is a question asked.

What you say is up to you.

wherediditallgo

shelly wrote: »

Maybe they told you the truth when they said they hadn't had any problems for 6 months. Maybe the noisy neighbours realise they have new neighbours and are trying their luck again

I can well believe that's the case. Where I used to live, I had noise problems with my next-door neighbour. Despite politely speaking to her about it, & also leaving polite typed notes in her mailbox (we were in flats in a converted house) when she wouldn't open the door, she still continued with it. After over 3 years of it (you can't relax when it's on, you can't relax when it's not on because you're tense thinking it could start any minute :mad: ), I couldn't take any more & put in a complaint. It was only at that point that I found out a previous complaint had been made. She came to me about it, ready for a stand-up argument, at which point I told her that I knew about the previous complaint, & therefore also knew that if the noise pollution department got a third they would look to take action against her through the courts, which could mean her being fined (& going to prison if she didn't pay it), losing her equipment & being banned from keeping any more. She immediately changed tack &, though she & I never exchanged anything other than basic civilities from that point on (a 'hello' if we happened to meet on the stairs or in the lobby, but nothing more), she kept the music down after that because she knew I knew what could be done about it, & that she stood to lose a lot if I put in another complaint. Funnily enough, her consecutive live-in boyfriends never had an issue with me at all, & would always be polite, help me carry heavy shopping up the stairs etc, so it was just her who was annoyed, presumably because she thought I'd be a pushover & she didn't like not getting her own way.

I mention this because a woman moved in underneath her late 2004/early 2005, therefore during the period when the noise was down & so may well have been given a similar line to the OP, i.e. there hadn't been any problems for about a year. I moved in 2005, over a year after putting in the complaint. I've since heard from someone else still living there that the weekend I moved out, the music went back up. The woman underneath her is now having the same problems I had, but as far as I'm aware doesn't know about the complaints already registered against the noisy one, & therefore doesn't realise she could easily get it stopped because the path has already been trodden by the two previous complaints.

OP, if the previous owner's complaints were in writing, in addition to considering suing for the situation not being properly declared, I would ask the local authority to send them a letter reminding them of the previous complaint/s & what action they'd been told could be taken against them. At the very least, if you know that official letters were sent to them, I'd tell the noisy neighbours you know about the previous official complaints & won't hesitate to revisit those with the local authority if the noise continues.

SkintMonkey

Thanks everyone - I never imagined that we would find ourselves in this situation. It is such a shame because we've moved to a lovely family area, but our next door neighbours really do bring it all down.

I'm not sure what will happen in regards to our complaint against the previous owners, but will defiantely keep you updated. I want them to realise how wrong they were about lying to us - we really feel that we were sold a lemon (to use my mum's words)! I'm going to call our solicitor at the end of the week to check they have recieved our paperwork and what they will do next - I guess we need to decide (with advice) what we are asking for from the previous owners....has anyone been in a similar situation to use before???

As far as the problems with next door goes, I thin after the recent visit from their landlords, the Housing Association, they are behaving themselves, but we do regularly go through these quiet periods and then everything kicks off agian. But we know what to do if there are any more problems and am trying to be positive and not let it worry us or get us down.

Thanks guys.