What can home owners do about noisy tenants?

propertyrental

Unfortunately, there's little their letting agent (or landlord) can do. As others have said, it's a neighbour dispute, not a tenancy issue.

Yes there's an outside chance the LA will agree to speak to the tenants (they may not) and an outside chance the tenants will adjust their behaviour as a result, but the bottom line is that

a) landlords don't want/like to interfere in their tenants' lifestyles (especially if they are reliable with the rent) and

b) anyway therer's little they can do to enforce a change other than serve a S21 notice and evict which

c) takes a long time and

d) costs the LL money

Have you checked your lease yet?

cymruchris

littlemissbliss said:

I am not sure why the negative comments.

It's the way you positioned the 'problem' - it came over as 'I'm better than them and I deserve more because I'm an owner and they're not'.

Drop the fact one of you is a homeowner, and one of you is a tenant - and position it simply as a 'noise issue'.

cr1mson

If the noise was that bad how come you didn't notice it when you viewed? Did you view at different times? Guess this is too late for this.

However I would urge you to approach this using a coffee and cake strategy and speaking to them face to face rather than penning notes and speaking to letting agency. Chances are the letting agency will do nothing as long as rent paid and put it down to general household flat noise especially as sounds like restricted to certain times rather than all night parties every night.

They may not realise the noise and previous owner may not have minded but there could be some simple solutions that would help. There is also the possibility that there is a specific reason why the child is making the noise. We had neighbours in old flat whose child had additional needs who had a witching half hour as their parents put it from 6.30-7 every night. Once we had had a chat with homemade cake and we understood what was going on we just lived with it. We were repaid a thousand times over by having good neighbours who helped is in so many ways.

theartfullodger

What can you do?  Move, obvs...

Or buy their apartment and evict them (IF all paperwork perfect... unlikely...)

littlemissbliss

cr1mson said:

If the noise was that bad how come you didn't notice it when you viewed? Did you view at different times? Guess this is too late for this.

However I would urge you to approach this using a coffee and cake strategy and speaking to them face to face rather than penning notes and speaking to letting agency. Chances are the letting agency will do nothing as long as rent paid and put it down to general household flat noise especially as sounds like restricted to certain times rather than all night parties every night.

They may not realise the noise and previous owner may not have minded but there could be some simple solutions that would help. There is also the possibility that there is a specific reason why the child is making the noise. We had neighbours in old flat whose child had additional needs who had a witching half hour as their parents put it from 6.30-7 every night. Once we had had a chat with homemade cake and we understood what was going on we just lived with it. We were repaid a thousand times over by having good neighbours who helped is in so many ways.

The last owner sold her property. She clearly was bothered, and I am guessing the reason I didn’t hear anything when I viewed the property was because the kids was likely at school. 

I have spoken to them, but their English is very bad and we can’t understand one another very well. So it’s difficult to have a good conversation, which is why I opted for a note. 

I am not trying to come at this in abrupt manner, but one that will resolve the problem. 

Newbie_John

So you said it's constant noise but then also that the kid goes to school, kid also likely is asleep 21-7, what time does it affect you?
If you come back from work at 6pm, and we're talking about 1/2 hours in the evening - is there something you could change in your life? Go to the gym, do shopping.. or buy them Xbox?

Some of my friends had a similar experience with neighbours who were arguing every evening, at some point they called the police as they fought something serious is happening and it got much worse from then, neighbours got really vicious, called police multiple times on them and they ended up selling the place after living there under a year.

Saying that, I really hope the note helps to improve current situation.

_Penny_Dreadful

littlemissbliss said:

I am not sure why the negative comments. It was a question about a serious problem, which I wasn’t aware of when I bought the flat. It’s quite upsetting actually. I live down south where my work is, try buying a house. 

The noise is a bit more then family noise, it’s horrendous to the point of driving me mad, it’s constant. It sounds like the kids are playing and jumping off the sofa or bed onto the floor and sounds like the ceiling is caving in. No one should have to deal with that, whether you rent or buy. I rented for 20 years in a converted house, so I know what it’s like. Normal movements is fine, but this is bad. This is a persons whole body weight. 

I don’t feel more entitled, but saving for a deposit is hard and takes years, and when your taking out a mortgage the last thing you want to feel is that you can’t spend time in your new home because of the noise being so bad! I appreciate the headphone suggestions, but I can’t wear headphones all day every day. 

I have penned a very kind message in a card, and will see if that helps. If not I will have to take it further. At the moment I don’t know who their letting agency is, I am hoping my estate agents can help me with that. 

The negative comments are a response to your negative attitude of home owners >> tenants.  Just because you’ve taken out a mortgage to buy a lease doesn’t mean that you somehow have more rights than someone with an AST.  Should tenants have to put up with noisy leaseholders simply because the leaseholder has a mortgage? If you have a noisy neighbour in England the avenues open to you are the same as if the people living upstairs were leaseholders like yourself or tenants.  Neither the landlord nor the letting agency acting on the landlord’s behalf have any legal obligation to do anything about your complaint. Rather than sticking a note through their letterbox why not introduce yourself to your new neighbours and speak to them face to face? 

If after speaking with your neighbours that doesn’t work then you can contact your council’s environmental health team but I’m not sure if the council will do anything about noise coming from children. It can be difficult enough to get councils to do something about heavy metal being blasted at 3am never mind children being noisy.  

@propertyrental asked about flooring requirements in the lease. If the leases specify that floors should be carpeted but the flat upstairs is not that’s one avenue to pursue via the freeholder.  Living in a flat you might also want to consider soundproofing your home to keep other people’s noise out. 

itsthelittlethings

Noise nuisance is a council matter. Having said that, it’s a bit much calling the council for kids playing! I do sympathise though. When you’re stressed anyway additional stress is not what you need.

RHemmings

littlemissbliss said:

I am not sure why the negative comments. It was a question about a serious problem, which I wasn’t aware of when I bought the flat. It’s quite upsetting actually. I live down south where my work is, try buying a house. 

The noise is a bit more then family noise, it’s horrendous to the point of driving me mad, it’s constant. It sounds like the kids are playing and jumping off the sofa or bed onto the floor and sounds like the ceiling is caving in. No one should have to deal with that, whether you rent or buy. I rented for 20 years in a converted house, so I know what it’s like. Normal movements is fine, but this is bad. This is a persons whole body weight. 

I don’t feel more entitled, but saving for a deposit is hard and takes years, and when your taking out a mortgage the last thing you want to feel is that you can’t spend time in your new home because of the noise being so bad! I appreciate the headphone suggestions, but I can’t wear headphones all day every day. 

I have penned a very kind message in a card, and will see if that helps. If not I will have to take it further. At the moment I don’t know who their letting agency is, I am hoping my estate agents can help me with that. 

I prickled a bit when I saw your 'homeowner' comment. When I rented I lived next door to someone who would frequently say that anything he said should take precedence over what I said because he was a home-owner and I was 'only renting'. It seems that others have had the same reaction. Remember that we only see what you write in forums, and can't read your mind. The bit in bold above, again, would give me the impression that you believe having purchased a house and having a mortgage gives you additional rights. If I hadn't seen other things that you've written. I'm not surprised that others are also reacting to that a bit. 

I had a look at the possibility of soundproofing a ceiling. It seems that it's most effective against airborne noise, which your noise isn't. I've seen mixed opinions on the effectiveness of sound-proofing against thumping sounds. Very mixed. Some claim that it will make a significant difference, particularly companies that well it. Some say it will make no real difference. It might be worth looking into further. 

OP - surely you have evidence of when you viewed the house - presumably multiple times. Were these all scheduled during school hours or other times that the children weren't at home. It might slightly indicate that your sellers knew there was a problem and avoided you finding out. I guess that they did not mention the noise in their TA10 form. 

It could be that the noise is a statutory nuisance, and therefore the council may be able to do something. It depends on whether your council agrees with that. See, e.g., https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/housing-options/home-safety/neighbour-disputes/  (I'm not suggesting that you are old, just that's where I found a reference. The council may take the position (and potentially reasonably) that children are expected to make some noise, and provided that it's not at all times of the night that this is not a statutory nuisance. But, you can go through the process. 

housebuyer143

littlemissbliss said:

I am not sure why the negative comments. It was a question about a serious problem, which I wasn’t aware of when I bought the flat. It’s quite upsetting actually. I live down south where my work is, try buying a house. 

The noise is a bit more then family noise, it’s horrendous to the point of driving me mad, it’s constant. It sounds like the kids are playing and jumping off the sofa or bed onto the floor and sounds like the ceiling is caving in. No one should have to deal with that, whether you rent or buy. I rented for 20 years in a converted house, so I know what it’s like. Normal movements is fine, but this is bad. This is a persons whole body weight. 

I don’t feel more entitled, but saving for a deposit is hard and takes years, and when your taking out a mortgage the last thing you want to feel is that you can’t spend time in your new home because of the noise being so bad! I appreciate the headphone suggestions, but I can’t wear headphones all day every day. 

I have penned a very kind message in a card, and will see if that helps. If not I will have to take it further. At the moment I don’t know who their letting agency is, I am hoping my estate agents can help me with that. 

It could be the child has additional needs and therefore probably is jumping up and down. It's something which while isn't fair on you is impossible to stop. 
My son is autistic and all day it sounds like a heard of elephants banging around upstairs - literally like he might come through the floor.. I'm used to it now but it's definitely disruptive. We had to option to get a detached house so as not to burden our neighbours, but many people as you can no doubt understand, do not have such options.