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Neighbours Hindering Sale... what can we do?
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Rob_Mogs
Posts: 156 Forumite
Hi,
We have our house on the market, it is a 3bed 14yr old house on a very quiet development, apart from one family that is.
We need to sell our house as we need to up-size and are looking for a smallholding.
Our problem lies here...... the types of property we are looking for, in the price bracket we are looking for, tend to sell pretty fast, as do the rest of the houses where we currently own, most take 30-50 days for an accepted offer, apart from ours.
Next door have 3 kids and a dog, for the most part they are polite and nice enough to speak to and we get on with them, but the kids are constantly in the garden screaming, playing just as kids do, just at an incredible volume, this is mainly due to the fact that the father works all hours in his job, then works his own business at night so is never there and the mother pays absolutely no attention to them and thus they are absolutely screaming for her attention but she just ignores them.
They have a trampoline that is up against our fence, and sitting 'quietly' in the garden is impossible, we cannot get any escape from them, - this sounds harsh I know as we do understand they are only kids, BUT if the parents paid a bit of attention to them and 'encouraged' them not to annoy the neighbours 24/7 we might get some peace.
The dog..... well, when we bought the place, there was no sign of a dog, no sign of any kids, nothing, and we had several viewings and also visited the place multiple times to get a grasp of the street, nothing.
1st week of moving in and there's a dog, barking CONSTANTLY, to the point that when we were laying a patio we had to ask them to lock it away as it was trying to attack us under the fence!
this dog was always fed and watered, but otherwise neglected, 6 in the morning it was booted outside and not brought in until 2300 at night, it was so much of a nuisance that we ended up walking it so that it could get to know and trust us so that we could get some peace, this particular dog was a dalmation, and a bloody big one too.
Because of the above scenario with the father, the garden was ALWAYS covered in dog mess, it was more dog mess than grass for months.
They then got rid of that dog as 'it was a problem dog' and within a week got a new bloody puppy!!
6 months on, and as can be expected, this dogs behaviour is exactly the same, except this time it's been fenced off on a concrete area right up against our fence, which is right alongside our patio, same scenario with the dog mess!
Same scenario with the times of being let out, however, this dog is far more bored than the last and is dragging it's metal bowl and anything else it can find around at 0600 making a hell of a noise and ripping our fence apart!
The garden looks like a council dumping ground, if clothes fall off the line they get left where they fall until they eventually rot into the ground, same with broken kids toys.
We've so far been lucky with the viewings and the kids and dog have not been at home, or locked in the house, but its still the same story every time, they love the house, they love the garden, they love the price, but the instant they look out of our upstairs windows and see the garden next door they say 'NOPE'
Other times they are trying to look around the garden but have a dog next door going absolutely mental and they just look and ask if the dog lives there, obviously we cannot lie and they just say "sorry we can't deal with that" and leave.
We had a viewing last night and right on cue, as soon as they arrive, next doors kids are released into the garden and start going wild... same story.
Now before anyone says it, yes we do get on with them, yes we and other neighbours have asked them to curb the noise, tidy the garden etc, but it falls on deaf ears with her, and with him, he'll tidy it but within a few days its back to normal.
We've even had another neighbour report them to council for noise and smell..... and nothing was ever done.
Is there actually anything we can do?
My partners quite often in tears with it and feels we'll either be trapped here or have to make a massive loss on the house, meaning we cannot afford to move and as such, back to being trapped here.
We have our house on the market, it is a 3bed 14yr old house on a very quiet development, apart from one family that is.
We need to sell our house as we need to up-size and are looking for a smallholding.
Our problem lies here...... the types of property we are looking for, in the price bracket we are looking for, tend to sell pretty fast, as do the rest of the houses where we currently own, most take 30-50 days for an accepted offer, apart from ours.
Next door have 3 kids and a dog, for the most part they are polite and nice enough to speak to and we get on with them, but the kids are constantly in the garden screaming, playing just as kids do, just at an incredible volume, this is mainly due to the fact that the father works all hours in his job, then works his own business at night so is never there and the mother pays absolutely no attention to them and thus they are absolutely screaming for her attention but she just ignores them.
They have a trampoline that is up against our fence, and sitting 'quietly' in the garden is impossible, we cannot get any escape from them, - this sounds harsh I know as we do understand they are only kids, BUT if the parents paid a bit of attention to them and 'encouraged' them not to annoy the neighbours 24/7 we might get some peace.
The dog..... well, when we bought the place, there was no sign of a dog, no sign of any kids, nothing, and we had several viewings and also visited the place multiple times to get a grasp of the street, nothing.
1st week of moving in and there's a dog, barking CONSTANTLY, to the point that when we were laying a patio we had to ask them to lock it away as it was trying to attack us under the fence!
this dog was always fed and watered, but otherwise neglected, 6 in the morning it was booted outside and not brought in until 2300 at night, it was so much of a nuisance that we ended up walking it so that it could get to know and trust us so that we could get some peace, this particular dog was a dalmation, and a bloody big one too.
Because of the above scenario with the father, the garden was ALWAYS covered in dog mess, it was more dog mess than grass for months.
They then got rid of that dog as 'it was a problem dog' and within a week got a new bloody puppy!!
6 months on, and as can be expected, this dogs behaviour is exactly the same, except this time it's been fenced off on a concrete area right up against our fence, which is right alongside our patio, same scenario with the dog mess!
Same scenario with the times of being let out, however, this dog is far more bored than the last and is dragging it's metal bowl and anything else it can find around at 0600 making a hell of a noise and ripping our fence apart!
The garden looks like a council dumping ground, if clothes fall off the line they get left where they fall until they eventually rot into the ground, same with broken kids toys.
We've so far been lucky with the viewings and the kids and dog have not been at home, or locked in the house, but its still the same story every time, they love the house, they love the garden, they love the price, but the instant they look out of our upstairs windows and see the garden next door they say 'NOPE'
Other times they are trying to look around the garden but have a dog next door going absolutely mental and they just look and ask if the dog lives there, obviously we cannot lie and they just say "sorry we can't deal with that" and leave.
We had a viewing last night and right on cue, as soon as they arrive, next doors kids are released into the garden and start going wild... same story.
Now before anyone says it, yes we do get on with them, yes we and other neighbours have asked them to curb the noise, tidy the garden etc, but it falls on deaf ears with her, and with him, he'll tidy it but within a few days its back to normal.
We've even had another neighbour report them to council for noise and smell..... and nothing was ever done.
Is there actually anything we can do?
My partners quite often in tears with it and feels we'll either be trapped here or have to make a massive loss on the house, meaning we cannot afford to move and as such, back to being trapped here.
0
Comments
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What do you want to ‘be done’?0
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Sounds awful. Problem is you need to sell it to someone who doesn't appreciate how awful it is, and that's going to be difficult!0
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I would also report them to the council. Don't trust your neighbours to do it. If things are like you describe - rotten clothes and dog mess in the garden , kids being ignored - I 'd be very surprised if they did nothing (unless you live in Northamptonshire?!)
Bear in mind that when you come to sell, you will have to declare the problem to the buyers, so it's best to be honest about it from the outset.
However, if you can't sell the house with the noise you'll have to sort that out first.0 -
The SPID asks whether the seller knows of anything which might lead to a dispute in future. So if you don't declare this information you will be opening yourself up to future liability as from what you have described it is obvious that it could lead to a dispute.
If you have spoken to them already there isn't much else you can do other than approach the council but as someone has already done this and there as been no change I think you may be stuck0 -
Will you really make a 'massive loss' if you advertise your house at a more attractive price than comparables? You'll receive less money, but depending how long you've been there and the area its in, it might stilll be much more than you paid.Is there actually anything we can do?
My partners quite often in tears with it and feels we'll either be trapped here or have to make a massive loss on the house, meaning we cannot afford to move and as such, back to being trapped here.
This was the sort of dilemma we faced when moving out of the city to get our smallholding. Then, the problem couldn't be pinned on an individual family, it was 'the bankers' and 'the politicians' who were apparently to blame for the price plummeting, so we had no one specific to focus our anger on.
We had untidy neighbours too, but quiet ones.
We still left. Got £60k less than we'd have done the year before, but that was better than sitting, twiddling our thumbs and waiting for God knew how long. (It was actually 4 years.)
Changing other people's behaviour is harder than changing one's own. We had to think out of the box [STRIKE]a bit[/STRIKE] a lot. Went rented and stayed poised, ready to strike....
We ended-up with a project property 150 miles from where we intended being. Doing the project half killed us, but now we're rather glad it worked out as it did.
Good luck.
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You!!!8217;ll probably just have to sell your house for less than it would be worth with decent neighbours.
Sorry, but that!!!8217;s what it!!!8217;ll boil down to. A landlord is probably your best bet, they won!!!8217;t have to live there themselves so won!!!8217;t care if they can get a bargain.0 -
Can't the dog just disappear?0
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So far you do not appear to have made a formal complaint, in writing. Once you do that, you will have to declare it on the SPID form.
I guess your only hope is to sell it to someone as equally chavvy as your current neighbours...No free lunch, and no free laptop
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I think any social work department has more important things to deal with than "children playing in their garden". Even if they were interested, what exactly would you expect them to do about it?If things are like you describe - rotten clothes and dog mess in the garden , kids being ignored - I 'd be very surprised if they did nothing (unless you live in Northamptonshire?!)0 -
So far you do not appear to have made a formal complaint, in writing. Once you do that, you will have to declare it on the SPID form.
The SPIF asks whether the seller knows of anything which might lead to a dispute in future.
So this should be included on the SPIF as it isn't just formal complaints that have to be included on the form0
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