Selling when you have nightmare neighbours

nightmareneighbours

Hi all,

In a few weeks I'm planning to move in with my partner and finish doing his house up ready to sell as soon as possible (hopefully moved out of there by Christmas this year). The house itself is a lovely mid terrace in a nice city in the south, with a big back garden and would be the perfect starter home for a newly married couple looking to start a family as it's got 3 good sized bedrooms and is close to good schools.

When my partner bought it, he thought that the condition of the house - basically the interior was the same as when it was built as a council house in the 60s - and the slightly longer walk into town/the train station that connects to London were the reason for the below average price. Turns out it's more likely to have been because his neighbours are absolutely awful It's a family of 4 in the house directly attached to his, and a couple in the final end terrace who just don't seem to behave like regular people should.

Since he's owned the house he's had his car vandalised twice (eggs and flour thrown over it, the latter in the middle of winter so it rained and then froze ), his front door/front window egged numerous times, the pavement outside the two properties has been vandalised with obscenities directed towards the neighbours 14 year old daughter, they dump their rubbish (mainly their beer cans) in his garden, he's had the police round multiple times due to the domestic situation going on next door (alcohol/substance abuse between the parents and threats of violence to and from the families internally and to each house, if that makes sense), recently someone tried to break his front door in because they got the wrong house number and thought it was his neighbours house (the police turned up swiftly and the guy doing it openly admitted he was trying to get into number 23 not number 25...). In the summer all you can hear from 2pm to 2am is them swearing, fighting and drinking in the back gardens, in the winter they're inside but the walls are quite thin so the sound travels through. The house next door is massively fond of slamming their front door whenever they have an argument - a daily occurrence - which literally rattles his whole house. You can also hear them running around inside the house and flying up and down the stairs, which I guess due to the whole family's rather increased size is amplified more than if a normally sized person was just walking up it.

He feels because these are the only two remaining housing association tenants on that part of the street if he reported them they'd know it was him straight away and the severity and frequency of their behaviours would not only increase but also now be completely directed at him, whereas atm most of it's just them causing drama around themselves and him catching the fall out, if you get me.

So, my question is this. How the hell do you sell this house? If these two houses were owned by people who could keep their affairs private and not on the pavement outside it'd be a decent place to keep hold of for a few more years but honestly, we're both sick of it - the final straw was a couple of weeks ago (just before the police came and got someone trying to break into his house) when there was a group of 3 - 4 rather large blokes stood outside on the pavement shouting about how they were going to beat the !!!! out of the older son (16/17 I think) because they thought he'd sold some dodgy gear, so my partner ended up being late for work as he couldn't safely get out of his property.

TBH I'm starting to think that just renting the !!!!!! might be a better idea, at least then we could vet who goes into it and it'd go quicker (rental market is better in that city than the sales market).

alfred64

Do not buy a house with tenant neighbours, except in upmarket areas.
Very little chance of selling this property for a decent price.
Best option would be to rent to a dysfunctional family so long as rent could be assured.

theinbetweener007

Sods law. I have had nightmare neighbours too. Extremely similar to what you describe. It is horrible.

My advice? Put it up for sale ASAP at a good price and no chain. Hope that just like when he viewed it, there is no trouble. Help him make the house a blank canvas and stage it for viewing. Accept an offer and move on with your life. Money is just not worth the pain and you can recover the money that may be lost over time, chances are heavily in your favour that you will make any loss back on your next, luckier, purchase. But you cant recover the time being unhappy and feeling stressed and unsafe.

Dont hesitate. Goodluck.

Davesnave

All houses sell at the right price, so put a discount on it, and if what you say about the rental market is correct, a landlord won't be able to pass it by.

Do you really want to be landlords yourselves, asking people to sign up for 6 months next door to these hellish neighbours? You might not be the ones next door then, but I bet you'd still hear plenty about it, especially if they and your tenants fell out!

Cakeguts

Enter it into a property auction.

Ozzuk

As above, auction, if you can afford the drop in price, I can't see many people buying in the environment you've described, and can't see any way you can keep that quiet.

enthusiasticsaver

I wouldn't spend any money doing it up. Drop the price as far as you can afford and hope some property developer snaps it up. Anyone who is attracted by the nice clean modern look of a newly decorated house is going to be put off by the neighbours house and gardens. A property develeloper may not care although they may well consider that is a definite disadvantage. Bad neighbours are one of the reasons we won't move as we love ours and you never know who you will get.