Solicitor recommendations for neighbour complaint

SameOldRoundabout

What noise are you making that keeps getting complained about? You’re far too vague to get any advice from here as we don’t know whether you’re reasonable in your decision that your noise is fine or not! Just because something is within noise limits does not mean it’s not incredibly annoying to someone else, ie a bouncing ball for 6 hours would drive me up the wall but it’s certainly not illegal. 

If this causes you so much stress I would say you need to stop whatever it is you’re doing. Unless it’s literally just talking or a weekly online Zumba class in your living room then maybe you are in fact causing enough noise to upset them? Clearly removing the “main factor” of less than an hour every other week making no difference means it wasn’t the main factor! I’m not sure why you can’t go into more specific detail if you’d like advice, so members can actually judge whether it’s your neighbour or you being unreasonable. 

Chandler85

Literally zero detail of what noise you are making, while writing paragraphs of text is utterly useless.

What noise you think is reasonable might not be to everyone else, but you have continually refused to tell us the noise.  Except that some other completely unknown people think they are normal.

You have complained about discrimination, as stated earlier unless you can give us what makes it discrimination then it isn't.  If you are the main cause of the noise, then complaining about you isn't discrimination, it's just a fact.

If you aren't doing anything wrong and everyone agrees with you, then they can complain as much as they want, to their friends in the park, a stranger in the pub (after lockdown) the police, council, housing association, then the housing ombudsman, their MP, the prime minister, anyone who will listen.  It doesn't mean they'll get anywhere.  There is no statutory rule where you make enough complaints you get your way.

[Deleted User]

@blurmoth69 Do you really want to continue renting to buy this property?  The relationship with your neighbour has irretrievably broken down and I'm not sure it can be fixed or that you really want to fix it.  You were making noise and you continued making noise after your neighbour complained numerous times.  It then took mediation for you to admit to some of the things your neighbour was complaining about all along.  If you had just tried to curb the noise in the first place the relationship with your neighbour might have been salvageable.  There's always the chance that your neighbour has unrealistic expectations of how much noise can be expected from an adjoining property but that's not how your posts are coming through at all.

blurmoth69

kazwookie said:

Well if they are moaning about the noise you are making, and you have owned up to it, then I suggest you tone it down, or stop doing it (what ever is causing the noise)

Have you been round and chatted to the neighbour who is complaining?.

Coronavirus has us all at home, distancing right now, hence note or knock at door was suggested and agreed with mediators (we got one note, which resulted in immediate result that they wanted).

The noise complaints first stated way back when this distancing started, when we were all started working from home (though we believe the neighbour was not working at the time it started, so likely had enough time to break the world record for logging reports). But seriously, we have actively adjusted tv volume as requested, but it is of course not possible to know how quiet it should be without neighbour guidance (again, we did put trust in the mediation agreement to work together on this - it is very one sided yet again).

The mediation was when we chatted things through and agreed with third parties present, that the points of noise complaints were all not unreasonable. Not my words, and again the government guidelines and police support this. The one noise that happened approx every other saturday was before 10pm and as agreed through mediations, not only did we technically implement reduction, we just outright removed that.

Which brings us back to the likes of complaints such as being too loud when working on phone in garden (this is small modern house and being that we both work from home it is techncially not expected to talk in same space with the hot weather we have had one of us would talk to clients on phone in garden, or in another room (again, hot weather and with pets, windows and doors are open as there isn't air conditioning) - luckily, no neighbours in their gardens for most of that, but occasionally the nighbouring gardens will be sprinkled with dogs barking, kids shouting and learning from home and other people talking on phones - common picture on most streets in current distancing lockdown I imagine). Learning and teaching an accoustic guitar is another that was agreed is fact of life, courses are done remotely these days and we cannot be expected to put teachers or students out of work when efforts have been made and accepted that it is reduced to minimum (again, all within guidelines and where possible behind closed doors and windows - which has not been possible during our recent climate).

Although I would help defend anyones right to work from home right now, we are not drilling at 8am in the morning like they did beside our bedroom wall, these kinds of things we accpet and do not report, plus we are actively adjusting our lives to suite our neighbours in various ways as we should. But we expect some acknowledgement of this as was agreed, even if it was all from our side. It was discussd that these kinds of sounds were not unreasonable, but that we are reasonable enough to listen to them on the requirement that we need to know what progress we are making. We expected a knock or note, as it was agreed under distancing as per their preference (again, their preference under mediation) so again, we agreed to that. But instead of helpful guidance to meet their preferences, there has to be some communication to know what that balance is, as we are not and have been advised not to be expected to be slient corpses. Beyond that is need for getting a balance, but they have given up on first effort to tell us to turn tv down, which again they was responded in it turned down to half (this is also an old tv with in-built speakers that rarely get over 30% volume).

These new houses are of course built to block private conversations as a minimum, but between that and government guidelines of noise, surely neighbours can communicate without reporting. I am not a fan of hearing young people running up and down stairs through neighbour walls, but I do not report them. It seems I could and with daily frequency maybe have it looked into, but the kind of noise from a family with half a dozen young children would be more noisy than us, but I am confident their rights of reasonable noise is another grey area of which such a neighbour would no doubt complain about.

blurmoth69

Lover_of_Lycra said:

You were making noise and you continued making noise after your neighbour complained numerous times.  It then took mediation for you to admit to some of the things your neighbour was complaining about all along ...  There's always the chance that your neighbour has unrealistic expectations of how much noise can be expected from an adjoining property but that's not how your posts are coming through at all.

Sorry for vagueness, honestly trying to avoid neighbour coming across this and making things worse. Enough of that, a list:

• Accoustic guitar lessons, approx an hour once or twice a week (indoors, sometimes with door or window open due to recent weather, during approx 11am to 9pm).
• Live music and friends catchup stream for hour 9pm to 10pm every other Saturday (this was biggest complaint, have recently stopped - perhaps even during the recent spat of reports as it was weeks ago). Was clealry expressed as very very loud (we did try some technical changes to reduce this, but again we had no feedback as agreed to measure our efforts as we were already trying to do this at farthest distance, but it is a small house, but since stopped it altogether just in case not knowing if our last efforts improved the situation or not, that was weeks ago).
• TV too loud (have made efforts to turn down, but difficult to gauge without communication).
  
• Shouting (partner has loud voice and that is partly due to throat operation, but also culturally and socially - we highlighted need for some understanding here, people have there differenes and there has to be an allowance of difference, whatever the cultural expectations)
  
• Screaming (nothing specific mentioned)
• Banging noises (nothing specific mentioned)

Hope that helps. Sorry for waffling around the specifics, hope you understand. No idea why if any/all apply in recent complaints, but this was the previous complaints brought up prior/during mediation.

I admit that when my partner did the live streams, it was too loud for me in the same house, some shouting has been around that as my efforts to limit the volume were technically thwarted. Hopefully that is now two birds down, having stopped those. The TV also I quiet at 30%, however my partner sometimes has set it to approx 70% and generally has it higher than me. I have no techical way to restrict the TV as it is so old. It is possible that my partner perhaps has an unnown hearing problem, but I have found it difficult to stop my partner from also turning TV up as music speaker when carrying out activities in the garden ... this is unreasonable to myself and if I catch this happening, turn it down. Needless to say there are growing domestic crimes and there is only so far I care to try resolving this, without the screaming and/or shouting that has also been complained about.

I didn't want to get into too personal detail, but maybe this can help get more honest and relatable recommendations and advice under the deetailed circumstances.

As for discimination, that pertains to reasonable garden noise as agreed with mediators and police, that were in line with other neighbours. My partner was singled out. This is something that happened with previous unrelated neighbour complaint; we were falsely accused of dagamging their garden, it caused us great stress having to defend against the neighbours accusation and the housing association. We produced evidence to the housing association directly disproving  the neighbour made a false claim against us, but the fact the housing association ignored the same garden problem we had yet took action against us for the same problem, is outright discriminatory and they have simply dismissed this and instead just agreed it was indeed not our fault, to which we also helped with a few suggestions to help the neighbours problem (despite having successfully proving the neighbour had lied about key detail of their false claim against us). I would think anybody else under the circumstances would feel discriminated against.

eddddy

Overall, it doesn't sound like you need a solicitor. It sounds more like you need a mediator.

Somebody who will listen to your side of the story, and calm you down - and listen to the neighbour's side of the story, and calm them down.

And then try to agree compromises with both parties. Like for example, the neighbours will tell their children not to stomp up and down stairs so loudly, and you will only give guitar lessons between specified hours

Here's some info about mediation services: https://www.gov.uk/how-to-resolve-neighbour-disputes/use-a-mediation-service.

sleepymans

As long as you are not being unreasonably noisy or provocative, why don’t you just ignore this issue. The neighbour is enjoying their petty power trip. Unless you are committing an offence or in danger of being evicted, it’s all a storm in a lockdown teacup.
Mind you, I personally wouldn’t call clients within earshot of other people.....why not go into kitchen or bedroom, if living room is not vacant???
p.s. I find your written communication very difficult to comprehend.......are your verbal communications perhaps misunderstood by your neighbours and making the situation worse ....just a thought.
I hope cooler weather, closed windows and working indoors might improve things.

steampowered

It sounds like whoever is "advising" you doesn't know what they are talking about. It sounds like they have been rilling you up rather than calming you down. What, exactly, does this person think is going to happen?

I don't understand why you can't simply ignore these complaints. It sounds like the council and housing association have already looked into it and decided not to take further action.

Since it sounds like most of the noise complaints are about your partner, why don't you get your partner to deal with this? It sounds like your partner is not being very helpful?

SameOldRoundabout

OP, a lot of the issues do sound like your partner. Is also sounds like you are insinuating that to broach this with him you wouldn’t be safe. If that’s the case, please seek help. There are people out there who can help with any domestic violence issues and no one should be afraid to mention things to their partner. If he’s blasting music despite previous complaints, and knowing your anxiety levels about it, that is not reasonable and he should know that. Apologies if that’s not what you’re saying. 

blurmoth69

eddddy said:

Overall, it doesn't sound like you need a solicitor. It sounds more like you need a mediator.

Sorry my large volumes of waffle have hidden this, but we already did that. It seemed to go very well, especially for the neighbour as we openly accepted all complaints which were directed at us. Which is how it should be, leaving discrimnation and other grievances aside to help resolve the immediate complaints. This was all discussed and agreed, I talked to them at their door from distance the following day to demonstrate my willingness (it was the first time we met in person, aside from mediation video) but we only got one communication from the nighbour after that (again, we complied with request - it was reasonable and was implemented immediately, to turn TV down). Weeks later, no communication and suddenly a latter of 100 complaints.

With some calm level headed response here in the forum so far, I would agree that solicitor would not be best at least yet. It seems we have some personal dispute in our home as to noise levels, that I personally think can still be improved. However waht is the purpose of mediation agreements if no communication is maintained, as agreed it would be needed until we had the blancance they wanted. Isn't that reasonable?