Cease and desist letter

ellectrastar

I have had problems with a neighbour for a few years now. This ranges from damaging my property to being verbally abusive to trespassing, taking photos and sending numerous letters, making false claims about my character or how I have acted in certain situations.
I have had to involve the police as the behaviour has been on-going for some years and does not look to be stopping any time soon. Every time there is an incident involving the neighbour I report it to the police so there is a record.
Following a flurry of antisocial behaviour the police have now suggested that my next step would be to send the neighbour a cease and desist letter. Obviously a solicitor can do this for me but it's a cost that I cannot really bear. I have looked online and can see templates that I could use myself but wanted to ask here if anyone has done this themselves, and whether it is taken as officially as it would be from a solicitor? From my understanding if I have a cease and desist letter sent and the neighbour continues to carry on with their behaviour that this reinforces my claim that it is harassment.

Emmia

ellectrastar said:

I have had problems with a neighbour for a few years now. This ranges from damaging my property to being verbally abusive to trespassing, taking photos and sending numerous letters, making false claims about my character or how I have acted in certain situations.
I have had to involve the police as the behaviour has been on-going for some years and does not look to be stopping any time soon. Every time there is an incident involving the neighbour I report it to the police so there is a record.
Following a flurry of antisocial behaviour the police have now suggested that my next step would be to send the neighbour a cease and desist letter. Obviously a solicitor can do this for me but it's a cost that I cannot really bear. I have looked online and can see templates that I could use myself but wanted to ask here if anyone has done this themselves, and whether it is taken as officially as it would be from a solicitor? From my understanding if I have a cease and desist letter sent and the neighbour continues to carry on with their behaviour that this reinforces my claim that it is harassment.

I think it would depend on what you'd do if they carried on after you send the letter? If you can't afford a solicitor letter now, you presumably can't afford legal representation if you needed it later in court.

ellectrastar

I think that's something I would continue to liaise with the police about really. I am not sure what the legal process would be but I just want to know if I send the letter myself does it carry the same weight as if I asked a solicitor to do it. 

doodling

Hi,

Whilst I know nothing about the process in this part of the law, that feels like the police are fobbing you off.

The next step feels like the police should be having words with the neighbour and if that doesn't have any effect, they should be gathering the evidence necessary for the CPS to charge the neighbour with the criminal offence of harassment and/or any other relevant offences.

There is no obligation for the victims of crime to write to criminals telling them not to commit crime before the police can take action.  Indeed, suggesting that they do so seems very wrong.

Bookworm105

Emmia said:

ellectrastar said:

I have had problems with a neighbour for a few years now. This ranges from damaging my property to being verbally abusive to trespassing, taking photos and sending numerous letters, making false claims about my character or how I have acted in certain situations.
I have had to involve the police as the behaviour has been on-going for some years and does not look to be stopping any time soon. Every time there is an incident involving the neighbour I report it to the police so there is a record.
Following a flurry of antisocial behaviour the police have now suggested that my next step would be to send the neighbour a cease and desist letter. Obviously a solicitor can do this for me but it's a cost that I cannot really bear. I have looked online and can see templates that I could use myself but wanted to ask here if anyone has done this themselves, and whether it is taken as officially as it would be from a solicitor? From my understanding if I have a cease and desist letter sent and the neighbour continues to carry on with their behaviour that this reinforces my claim that it is harassment.

I think it would depend on what you'd do if they carried on after you send the letter? If you can't afford a solicitor letter now, you presumably can't afford legal representation if you needed it later in court.

this 

it is what comes after the letter that matters, not who wrote it. 
yes asking them to stop is a necessary step on escalation process, but unless they do something criminal which the police cannot ignore then you are at the mercy of civil litigation which it appears you cannot afford.

ellectrastar

Yes, I have told the police that I think it needs someone to have a word with the neighbour regards their behaviour but it seems these days that no one really wants to do anything, despite evidence I have provided.
To clarify this neighbour has damaged my property, been verbally abusive, made accusations about me saying I am violent and threatening, they have caused physical injury, and have made threats such as to put myself in front of a vehicle and see what happens, they say they are photographing me and filming me all the time, they send me unwanted letters again making false claims about a variety of subjects. To me this is all harassment. They will not leave me alone. It is just going through the process of having this recognised. If disregard of a cease and desist letter helps as more evidence I am happy to do so. I just wanted to know if I did it myself whether it's still as "legal" as coming from a solicitor.

PRAISETHESUN

Anyone can write a letter asking someone to not do something, but unless you're prepared to follow through with it then I wouldn't bother. And given it's likely to devolve into a legal matter if you go down that route, it would make sense to get a solicitor involved. Do you have any legal protection on your home insurance that might help perhaps?

elsien

If you want it to have a psychological impact, then it may be more effective coming from a solicitor. 

Although if your neighbour has  ignored everything else up until now, I’m not sure if this letter would make any difference. In terms of the law, anyone can write a letter or ask us solicitor to write a letter on their behalf so on its own it doesn’t prove anything. 

The police do have the power to act If you are providing them with evidence of harassment , without this type of letter being necessary.
That is the route I would be going down, because if I’m honest, I don’t think a letter would make the slightest bit of difference in practical terms. 

RAS

Also speak to your local Councillor who may be able to refer you for help. 

Grumpy_chap

What outcome does the OP realistically hope for from a cease and desist letter given the neighbours have ignored everything else?

What will the OP do if the cease and desist letter is either ignored or inflames matters?

FigaroQueen

Going through similar with my neighbour and wondering how to get her to stop spreading malicious rumours about us. This has been ongoing for 8 years now. I am only just piecing together evidence about why neighbours have been rude or difficult to us, or why other school parents are rude to us on school runs or in our community and give us death stares. We recently got a doorbell camera and we recorded my neighbour venomously telling another neighbour that our shared alley was a mess (it wasn’t, and they looked just as miffed as I felt) and that she had been cleaning it up for years and that ‘they’re just lazy aren’t they’ about us (we only share this alley with them and that neighbour) which is defamatory, as my husband works full time, we have two Sen children and I have 10 listed medical conditions which she is aware of. She was talking about a few weeds which I went out and cleared in two mins, but then again why should I do it with chronic health conditions when she works part time? She has also never discussed this with us previously, and I feel she is a just being petty and inflammatory for no reason. 

Which is another issue with her- she is an NHS GP receptionist and works at my old GP practice. I had to leave them due to bad care and her breaking confidentiality about me and our children multiple times- when she was being particularly vicious towards me, she approached my old Personal Assistant multiple times on the same day (who is paid for by a social services personal budget) and told her I am not disabled, that I am scamming the government and to leave my family! My PA knew this was a lie, she knew I had had multiple assessments to get this budget and knew all about my health conditions, but found the school runs with me particularly hard because my neighbour would say hello and wave at her like nothing had happened, and she said it had affected her anxiety badly, so she handed in her notice (with 12 hours notice to me!) 
My new PA is aware not to talk to her, and I do realise now that her lies about me have been so horrific that she is obviously a narcissist or similar. She has major issues. We were best friends, and she discarded me quite epically last summer by shouting at my husband in the street and making out we had done something terribly wrong to her. (We still do not know what this was about). 

She has caused a lot of confusion for us for ages. We have had neighbours/ parents from our school speak to us with such venom, one approached her door (Undecorated) on a Halloween period and set off our doorbell, I went out and offered her little girl, who is in my daughter’s class, a sweet, and she replied callously ‘we don’t want anything from you’ and I burst into tears because I still to this day have no idea what that was about, and my neighbour feigned ignorance and said she did not even know why she was at her door as they were not even friends (another lie). This other parent, had a go at my daughter on a school run for trying to hold her daughter’s hand, and on another occasion laughed at me after I said hello to her in the street. The confusion about why these interactions has happened has been awful for my mental health. 

Multiple parents on our school runs give us death stares on a daily basis (they are her friends) and I do not know what the issues are. It is very confusing and has caused me a lot of anxiety and PTSD which I have had extensive therapy for. 

A few years ago, we had a horrible neighbour who harassed us, she even filmed me through the window shouting at my children and sent it to NSPCC, (this resulted in the police at our door and a social services referral which was dropped immediately as soon as they spoke to us over the phone- the police even knew they were harrassing us, my children were happy and looked after, and they told us to keep a log against our other neighbour. A couple of weeks after the incident, we heard her discussing it outside with our awful neighbour, they her they had filmed us (did not admit what they did with it and she told her she sent it to her sister to prove she was a better parent than me (!) and my neighbour seemed to encourage them and say that it was ok they broke our privacy. What was awful about that is she was supposed to be my best friend and knew the horrific issues we had with our children’s sensory needs and knew also that we had very little support from our Health Visitor, and literally threw us under a bus, so I have every reason to believe that she stoked this little fire in the first place with our neighbour. (Our children now have 3 confirmed diagnoses each, 4 years later). When I asked her about this conversation she denied it. Her general demeanour and gaslighting ways are a huge red flag for me, I honestly think she is very dangerous. 

It kick started harrassment from the old neighbour that involved multiple accusations about us to social services, passive- aggressive notes from them, them ignoring my frequent hello’s and refusing to speak to us, to them even abusing us on our local online community group. I have never been under social services and they told me they knew all accusations were malicious. I tried to do mediation with them through our housing association and they refused. They moved out luckily. I do not know what the issue was with us, and now totally assume it was all due to my current neighbour. 

Luckily, my newer neighbour does not want to get to know her neighbours that well due to issues exactly like this, and gives her the brush off so she cannot spread rumours to her thankfully. 

Now I am building evidence against her, can I do a cease and desist letter? I do not know what is best to do, as we are shared ownership and I would happily move away from her as she just never seems to stop, even on school run today she met up with a friend and kept looking back at me and our husband as she gossiped about us! but cannot afford to do move at the moment. I don’t think a mediation with the housing association would work as she would like lie, feign ignorance and charm them, and we would go back to square one.