Buying my house was the biggest regret of my life!

lhg91

So my partner and I have been in our house almost a year now. It wasn't exactly the kind of house I wanted, but it did feel homely when we viewed it (4 times). Good value for money (although I do think now, that we overpaid!), close to work, a decent first time buy.

After moving in we found out that the house next door to us is a Housing Association house. I did research this prior to buying the property on the council website and it said 'owned outright'. I thought this meant that the owners had purchased the house under the right to buy scheme, but turns out that is not the case.

Anyway, without sounding like a complete snob (trust me, I'm not!) The neighbours are driving me crazy! They have four children that are constantly running around, and I feel like tearing my hair out most evenings. They don't seem to know what a normal voice is, and constantly shout at each other, and the kids (max. age 12, swear and shout at the parents). We have spoke to them a few times, and we plan on speaking to them tomorrow about the noise. They do seem more considerate (I think they know they have to be as they are the only HA home on the estate). I suffer from anxiety, and feel like I have no place to relax anymore as i'm always on edge as to when the next bout of noise is going to happen!

Long story short, I feel like I've made the biggest mistake of my life buying this house. I now realise why this house wasn't sold within the first 10 days of it being put on the market (houses within this price range go within days typically, I live in Devon good-priced houses are snapped up!). Sad thing is, when we viewed the house multiple times, at different times of the day and week, you could hear a pin drop, both in and outside the house!

The estate agent essentially lied to us about the previous owner of our house (we found out from speaking to neighbours later), and I'm now worried that no one is going to want to purchase our house when we come to move because of the attached HA house.

My question is, would being attached to a HA home put you off purchasing a property? Is this something our solicitor should have told us about before purchasing? And if no complaints have been made by the previous owners of our home against the neighbours, do we have a leg to stand on regarding claiming against the 'nuisance' neighbours?

elsien

You can get bad or noisy neighbours regardless of who the owner/landlord is.
I lived next door to a lovely family for years - they moved out but kept the house to let out as a private rental. I have since had horrendous problems with music so loud I can't hear my tv at all hours of the day and night. Parent has neighbours with a dog that barks all day.

I don't think it being a housing association property makes much difference in the general scheme of things - in some respects its possibly slightly better as they may take more notice of truly antisocial behaviour than some private landlords.

Your neighbours are loud rather than antisocial. That could happen anywhere you live, unless you are able to afford a detached house which many of us can't.
You may be better of looking at ways to help you manage the noise and anxiety.

foxy-stoat

Read the title and thought, bought too high now the value has dropped like a stone!


If you do not want to live there put it back on the market nearer when your fixed rate is up and move. Life is too short. May cost you a few thousand in fees but your first time property wont be the one you live in forever.


You will get nowhere with trying to "claim", not sure who you would claim off anyway.


You will not be able to change the way the neighbours live, noise, swearing, shouting etc.


You get good and bad folk up and down the country in Housing Association properties or not so its all pot luck I am afraid.

Fosterdog

How long have the neighbours lived there? Could the reason you could hear a pin drop when you viewed be that they weren't living there at the time?

hazyjo

Make sure the next one is detached as you are likely to get noise from one side at times. We have an elderly lady next door and thankfully are 'halls adjoining' to her so don't hear a thing, but the family the other side of the terrace get her telly absolutely blasting through their walls as she's pretty deaf. One time, they actually all gave up trying to watch theirs and joined her next door to watch Eurovision!


And people move - so you can never guarantee who'll be next door long term in a semi or terrace. Plus couples may go on to have screaming kids... I mean who is an ideal neighbour? We have a young family the other side and they're pretty quiet but you do hear them singing sometimes or running up and down the stairs or yelling at each other. Our telly is that side, so I suppose it drowns some out.


You might want to look into soundproofing that side of your house.


Jx

HiToAll

lhg91 wrote: »

So my partner and I have been in our house almost a year now. It wasn't exactly the kind of house I wanted, but it did feel homely when we viewed it (4 times). Good value for money (although I do think now, that we overpaid!), close to work, a decent first time buy.

After moving in we found out that the house next door to us is a Housing Association house. I did research this prior to buying the property on the council website and it said 'owned outright'. I thought this meant that the owners had purchased the house under the right to buy scheme, but turns out that is not the case.

Anyway, without sounding like a complete snob (trust me, I'm not!) The neighbours are driving me crazy! They have four children that are constantly running around, and I feel like tearing my hair out most evenings. They don't seem to know what a normal voice is, and constantly shout at each other, and the kids (max. age 12, swear and shout at the parents). We have spoke to them a few times, and we plan on speaking to them tomorrow about the noise. They do seem more considerate (I think they know they have to be as they are the only HA home on the estate). I suffer from anxiety, and feel like I have no place to relax anymore as i'm always on edge as to when the next bout of noise is going to happen!

Long story short, I feel like I've made the biggest mistake of my life buying this house. I now realise why this house wasn't sold within the first 10 days of it being put on the market (houses within this price range go within days typically, I live in Devon good-priced houses are snapped up!). Sad thing is, when we viewed the house multiple times, at different times of the day and week, you could hear a pin drop, both in and outside the house!

The estate agent essentially lied to us about the previous owner of our house (we found out from speaking to neighbours later), and I'm now worried that no one is going to want to purchase our house when we come to move because of the attached HA house.

My question is, would being attached to a HA home put you off purchasing a property? Is this something our solicitor should have told us about before purchasing? And if no complaints have been made by the previous owners of our home against the neighbours, do we have a leg to stand on regarding claiming against the 'nuisance' neighbours?

trust me you are................I hope you havent touched one of the undesirables living next door or you might have to burn everything you own.

lhg91

Thanks for your comments The family have lived there around 3-4 years I think, and we are semi-detached (unfortunately attached to the HA, and not attached to a lovely elderly couple next door!)

The previous owner of our house rented it out to HA, and there were 7 children and two adults living in it, so our non-attached neighbours were over the moon when we moved in. I could only imagine the amount of noise from the two houses (the two families were very friendly!) They apparently left our house in such a mess that the owners had to get a team of decorators in to completely gut the place out.

I forgot to mention we are currently getting the kitchen refurbished, so we don't want to move too soon as we will lose even more money.

lhg91

HiToAll wrote: »

trust me you are................I hope you havent touched one of the undesirables living next door or you might have to burn everything you own.

I used to live in a council house, on a council estate, in Gateshead. Trust me, i'm not a snob. I just know what a lot of tenants that live in social housing can be like, as I have lived amongst my fair share of them. Sorry that I have saved up for years to purchase a house of my own with the hope of being able to return to my home and relax without having screaming adults and kids next door, wow, what a snob.

davidmcn

lhg91 wrote: »

I used to live in a council house, on a council estate, in Gateshead. Trust me, i'm not a snob. I just know what a lot of tenants that live in social housing can be like, as I have lived amongst my fair share of them. Sorry that I have saved up for years to purchase a house of my own with the hope of being able to return to my home and relax without having screaming adults and kids next door, wow, what a snob.

You have noisy neighbours. I'm not sure what the relevance of their type of tenure is.

HiToAll

lhg91 wrote: »

I used to live in a council house, on a council estate, in Gateshead. Trust me, i'm not a snob. I just know what a lot of tenants that live in social housing can be like, as I have lived amongst my fair share of them. Sorry that I have saved up for years to purchase a house of my own with the hope of being able to return to my home and relax without having screaming adults and kids next door, wow, what a snob.

could be any type of housing.
I think what you are saying is that we should round up anyone who needs social housing of any type and sail them all out to an island in the middle of the north sea. Then they wouldnt have to sully your neighbourhood.

3mph

Think very carefully before making any vaguely formal complaint in case, or if it escalates, you then have to declare it when selling.