Neighbour and management threatening fines and eviction

Skiddaw1

princeofpounds wrote: »

Interesting thread. There is a lot of good advice on it, and also a fair amount of emotional nonsense.


The following points are very relevant for you OP, so worth reiterating:


- Don't worry about being reported to the authorities as a noise nuisance. Normal living sounds are excluded from noise nuisance enforcement, and the council will not do anything more than talk to you about the situation. Rave music at 3am is a legal nuisance, crying baby at 3am is not.


- Don't worry about the threats from the freeholder. You have no direct legal relationship with them. They cannot fine you, and they cannot terminate your tenancy. The worst they could try to do is seek the terminate your headlease (i.e. your landlord's long lease) - that would be a long, expensive trip to court and they would fail, largely because your noise would not fit the legal definition of nuisance (there could be other reasons I won't list).


- Don't worry about that clause in your tenancy agreement. It is not a legally valid clause for a consumer contract and is not enforceable. Furthermore, the only person who could even attempt to enforce it would be your landlord, who doesn't care.


- The only indirect way you could have an indirect legal relationship to the freeholder is if there is a clause in your contract where you commit to maintain all the terms of your landlord's headlease, AND you were shown all those terms prior to moving in. Even then, any individual clause would need to be valid in a consumer contract, and your LL would be the person who would choose to enforce something. Again, because your noise is just normal living noise, you don't even need to begin to worry about this situation.


- The managing agent is just an appointed representative of the freeholder. The freeholder may be an entirely separate individual/company, or it could be a company owned by some or all or the long leaseholders (like your LL and/or neighbours). They might write letters to you at the request of disgruntled neighbours - they might even BE your neighbours (in part, most likely). That doesn't mean they really know or care about the situation and it doesn't mean they can do anything about it.


So, from a legal point of view, you have zero to be concerned about as long as the noise you produce is just a reasonable product of living your life in the flat.


Having said all of that, I think a lot of people raging at the downstairs neighbours are not being that sensible. I have lived underneath a flat with wooden floors and children. At times, it was a nightmare. Totally normal noise, such a dropping marble, can resonate through into the floor below like a louder version of water torture.


The fact is that two things can be true at once. You can be totally justified in the sort of noise you are creating, and your neighbours may have a totally valid complaint when they say the noise is intolerable. Of course they might also be totally unreasonable, but anyone simply assuming they are is jumping to conclusions.


All you should do is try to help where possible. With slippers, rugs, and trying your best to be considerate, it sounds like you are already doing that.


The real culprit here - and I'm surprised it hasn't been emphasized more - is your landlord. He is the one responsible for the wooden flooring (regardless of whether he originally put it in or not). If the freeholder does have any valid breaches to address (leases often prohibit wooden floors, but not always) then he is the only one who needs to answer to them.


So when your neighbours complain, you should be firm, although not necessarily without sympathy (have you ever even visited their flat to hear what the noise could be like? You absolutely don't have to, but you could consider it). Tell them:
a) that any noises you are making are a result of normal and reasonable living in your own home
b) that you have made reasonable voluntary efforts out of sympathy to mitigate noise, by using rugs and slippers at your own cost
c) that you are well aware from their repeated complaints that they do not like the situation, but that there is nothing more you can or will do as you do not control the construction of the flat, so the conversation is over (unless they come up with a great practical idea you hadn't thought of maybe!)
d) so if they want to take it further, they should address your landlord who is responsible for the flooring inside the flat, which is clearly the root cause of the problem

Good response. I quite agree. We lived in a flat for some years and I absolutely understand how sound travels. But as you say, from what we can see, OP has done all in her power to minimize the noise. Short of learning to levitate there really isn't anything else she can do. The only possible way to resolve the situation to everyone's satisfaction is for the LL to invest in alternative flooring/sound proofing (or for one or other party to move on).

Jox

gomer wrote: »

I do, but not so that i don't inflict screaming babies on my neighbours.

I'm gay.
:cool:

Gay people can have children too, even crying babies

gomer

Jox wrote: »

Gay people can have children too, even crying babies

Really? Who knew! Thanks for educating me. I didn't think it was possible? :T

NeilCr

Jox wrote: »

Not a practical option always (not living in a flat), we can't all afford to rent a house, plus even if you live in a house you may still get a moany neighbour

And, of course, the other way round is true, too.

The advice from some to the "moany" neighbour to move raises most of the same issues. If they move to a house they may get extremely noisy neighbours.

It always seems slightly trite advice (from both signs of the arguement) to me. As you say it's not always possible for people to move. Plus, why should people have to move because of a very moany/noisy neighbour.

knightstyle

Some flats close to where we live have a clause that says special noise reducing underlay with fitted carpet must be laid everywhere except the kitchen. Seemed to work well.
Opp if you can see about fitting this in the main rooms, might cost a bit but worth it if you stay in a place for a long time and if not you can take it with you when you leave.

[Deleted User]

Annastin wrote: »

God this has blown up!

I don't have much to add besides what has been repeated above by the other posters.

Just to be clear, I have always been unfailingly polite to every approach by the downstairs neighbours and explained clearly what we do to minimise noise and that (much as I would love to!) I can't stop the children from crying (especially when they're poorly) and (as you would expect) we do our best to quieten them as it's even more grating to us at a few feet away! They're only 2 and 1 unfortunately so not always receptive to logic.

I sincerely hope they take this to the council or management or landlord (I offered them his contact details but they already had it) so they can leave me alone. Surprisingly, they haven't complained about us to our landlord yet!

FYI, we share walls with 2 flats on the same floor and have never received a complaint about excessive noise from them.

Yes but these neighbours live below you and you have wooden flooring. Your family quite possibly sounds like a heard of elephants charging around to the people downstairs. Have you been inside your neighbour's flat to hear how loud your 'every day noise' sounds in theirs? Your landlord was stupid to let a flat with wooden floors. I moved out a rented flat because the nice, and they are genuinely nice people, who lived upstairs installed laminate flooring and had a penchant for karaoke and dancing with their twins. There's only so much "Old MacDonald" with the accompanying thump, thump, thump of toddler dancing one can take. :rotfl:

Interestingly, the sound of crying babies has been used to torture the inmates in Guantanamo Bay as has the music of Yoko Ono, make of that what you will.

gomer

I still think Durex offer a cheaper solution & so does MSE Martin! :money::money:

Annastin

My partner and I went downstairs and communicated the message politely to the downstairs neighbour. We told her that unfortunately we can't do anything more, that we have a contract to next summer and so, even if we wanted to, we couldn't move before then.

She again said that we could be fined and evicted for ASB and that she doesn't want to do this during the holiday season but we would hear from her solicitor!!?? I was a bit taken aback by this but said please do what you have to but I don't consider our actions to be ASB by any stretch of imagination. I requested her to not come knocking on our door again if it was to complain about noise.

She eventually mouthed a terse "Good night" and shut the door in our faces.

I called the landlord to appraise him on the latest and asked about carpeting. He misunderstood what I was saying and thought we wanted to move out and said "pay me the remaining rent for the fixed term and you're free to move out". And apparently he hasn't had carpeting in the flat since he bought it 16 years ago and does not intend to change that.

Anyway, he again said the same thing, to not bother him with this particular problem anymore ("nothing you do will make her happy!") and to tell the neighbour to contact him directly for any complaints.

gomer

Annastin wrote: »

My partner and I went downstairs and communicated the message politely to the downstairs neighbour. We told her that unfortunately we can't do anything more, that we have a contract to next summer and so, even if we wanted to, we couldn't move before then.

She again said that we could be fined and evicted for ASB and that she doesn't want to do this during the holiday season but we would hear from her solicitor!!?? I was a bit taken aback by this but said please do what you have to but I don't consider our actions to be ASB by any stretch of imagination. I requested her to not come knocking on our door again if it was to complain about noise.

She eventually mouthed a terse "Good night" and shut the door in our faces.

I called the landlord to appraise him on the latest and asked about carpeting. He misunderstood what I was saying and thought we wanted to move out and said "pay me the remaining rent for the fixed term and you're free to move out". And apparently he hasn't had carpeting in the flat since he bought it 16 years ago and does not intend to change that.

Anyway, he again said the same thing, to not bother him with this particular problem anymore ("nothing you do will make her happy!") and to tell the neighbour to contact him directly for any complaints.

Perhaps he didn't misunderstand you at all & now thinks it will be less trouble to him if you leave early. Truthfully i don't see this ending well. The neighbour has clearly taken a rather strong disliking to you and is prepared to cause serious problems for you & your landlord clearly doesn't want to be dragged into it.

Annastin

Ah no, it was definitely a misunderstanding. Him and the downstairs lady clearly have a history of bad blood. That is probably why the lady isn't complaining to him, which would be the logical thing to do in the first instance.

Even if we wished to, we can't afford to break the contract and move out. I guess we'll just have to see what she throws at us and deal with it.

Thank you again to the posters on the thread who explained that she can't get the management to fine or evict me easily. That has taken away my main worry of monetary loss or early eviction.

gomer wrote: »

Perhaps he didn't misunderstand you at all & now thinks it will be less trouble to him if you leave early. Truthfully i don't see this ending well. The neighbour has clearly taken a rather strong disliking to you and is prepared to cause serious problems for you & your landlord clearly doesn't want to be dragged into it.