Selling a house with soundproofing issues

[Deleted User]

Long story short, we did some decorating in our house back in October last year. Despite not making any structural changes, we have been plagued with sound issues from our neighbours ever since. Nothing anti-social, just doors closing, kitchen drawers being shut plus loud voices can all be heard and travels through the whole house, to the point where we have been woken up by it. 

When the issue first reared its head my other half went round and spoke to them about it to ask if they were having the same issues as us and if they had done any work their side which may have caused the issue. To our surprise they said they can’t hear us at all and hadn’t made any changes. All very friendly and we haven't mentioned anything to them since. 

After a stressful 8 months of living with it, and being let down by two workmen who were going to come and take a look, we have given up, had enough and decided we want to sell up and move on. 

We are completely going round in circles about what to do regarding the soundproofing. All its going to take is one drawer or door slam, or for the bloke to open his trap and any viewers will be straight out of the door. Plus if they send a surveyor round surely they will pick up on it. However when I speak to my parents about it they are adamant that we shouldn’t spend any more on the house and just sell it as it is. 

Also after reading about SPIF declarations I am not sure whether we would have to declare this as an issue or not. We haven’t made any formal complaints, just had that one verbal communication with next door which was all friendly. 

I have read on here other people have had issues with noise and ended up moving, so would be interested to hear how you went about selling a 'noisy house'! 

AdrianC

Sorry, there was no noise before you "decorated", and now there is...?

That sounds like more than just decoration was changed...

RelievedSheff

We sold our last house due to neighbour noise. We part exchanged it against a new build. The developers did market the house while we were still in it and we conducted the viewings with the potential buyers. We answered all of their questions openly and honestly.

I think we were lucky in that our noisy neighbours were not in over the weekend that the six viewings took place so no noise was being made when the viewings were happening. Not that it would have mattered to us if they were there as it wasn't technically our house to sell at that point!

[Deleted User]

AdrianC said:

Sorry, there was no noise before you "decorated", and now there is...?

That sounds like more than just decoration was changed...

We painted walls, sanded skirting and put vinyl flooring down in the downstairs hallway. We assumed the flooring was what caused the issue, so ripped it up and put carpet down with a thick underlay. It changed nothing. Can't really work out what else it could be as we didn't change anything else. 

[Deleted User]

RelievedSheff said:

We sold our last house due to neighbour noise. We part exchanged it against a new build. The developers did market the house while we were still in it and we conducted the viewings with the potential buyers. We answered all of their questions openly and honestly.

I think we were lucky in that our noisy neighbours were not in over the weekend that the six viewings took place so no noise was being made when the viewings were happening. Not that it would have mattered to us if they were there as it wasn't technically our house to sell at that point!

Thanks for the reply.

Did the house builder offer you a decent price for your house? 

Think my other half would need a lot of convincing to move to a new build, although there is a development up the road from us which doesn't look too unaffordable 

davidmcn

Deleted_User said:

AdrianC said:

Sorry, there was no noise before you "decorated", and now there is...?

That sounds like more than just decoration was changed...

We painted walls, sanded skirting and put vinyl flooring down in the downstairs hallway. We assumed the flooring was what caused the issue, so ripped it up and put carpet down with a thick underlay. It changed nothing. Can't really work out what else it could be as we didn't change anything else. 

New air gaps around the skirting maybe?

In answer to the question, you only need to disclose matters which have been a dispute or "anything which might lead to a dispute". I don't think that includes your own rubbish sound insulation, so I wouldn't say there's any requirement for you to declare it to buyers.

RelievedSheff

Deleted_User said:

RelievedSheff said:

We sold our last house due to neighbour noise. We part exchanged it against a new build. The developers did market the house while we were still in it and we conducted the viewings with the potential buyers. We answered all of their questions openly and honestly.

I think we were lucky in that our noisy neighbours were not in over the weekend that the six viewings took place so no noise was being made when the viewings were happening. Not that it would have mattered to us if they were there as it wasn't technically our house to sell at that point!

Thanks for the reply.

Did the house builder offer you a decent price for your house? 

Think my other half would need a lot of convincing to move to a new build, although there is a development up the road from us which doesn't look too unaffordable 

We got a great deal from the developers on a completed plot. The plot was already heavily discounted to get it off their books. They gave us £90k for our old house which was 90% of what we could have achieved on the open market, but then they gave us £10k deposit contribution, stamp duty paid, legal fees paid and a moving costs contribution. Added to that there were no estate agents fees to pay and from reservation of the plot to moving in was 3.5 weeks we were really happy with the deal. 

ArchtiectBOX

Have you sealed around the bottom of the skirting?

[Deleted User]

ArchtiectBOX said:

Have you sealed around the bottom of the skirting?

No we have carpet down now. The skirting changes were done in the hallway only, but the noise issues are coming from the whole party wall including in the lounge (which is actually where it is worst), which make me think its a bigger issue than just what we did in the hallway. 

MovingForwards

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6119865/sound-problems#latest

Here's the backstory.