My Tenant had complained about their neighbour being noising after the 11pm noise curfew in the lease rules.
Could I ask what is the right step to deal with such issues? i.e. what is the first thing second thing a tenant or landlord should do?
Any suggestion helps!
Have you spoken to the individual first? maybe they are hard of hearing and unaware of disturbance Keep a solid record of noiseā¦ Record if possible . Liase with other leaseholdersā¦ Inform the freeholder
Th noises are like 5am karaoke party, or TV noises until 2-3am. Those are what my tenants are telling me and they want to know what to do. i.e. do they confront them or i confront the neighbour.
I was reading my scanned lease in PDF which i canāt use find function to find key word and after reading for a long time still didnāt find a trace of anything relating to noise times or who to report to.
If you dont live there ,someone has to record events. Local councils will have knowledge of noise limits ,They may have a noise abatement officer
Thanks. I read it just now there is a noise section on the council website and it was saying step 1 is speaking to the tenant, step 2 if not resolved, get a paid mediation service as a middle man, step 3 if still didnāt work use lease to suggest that they broke it and may take level action. step 4 if they still ignore then take legal action which cost money.
From reading it, it looks like the best thing to do is for the tenant to speak to them. Because all there is just about noises and going down a legal route the neighbour would need to be a serious trouble maker.
I assume if it goes down the legal route then the cost, the cost should be out of tenantās own pocket?
I have no idea who would pay.
Seems strange advice on council website as noise is usually reported under Environmental Health as Colin said. I have never heard of anyone having to pay for mediation.
EH send out a ādiaryā which your tenants would have to fill in. The Environmental Officer would then write to the noise makers and take it from there.
The tenants could phone up seeing as they are the ones experiencing the issues.
You could write to the noise makers or you could go straight to EH.
i was always under the impression noise was hndled by a council officer as its similar to a public disturbance , hence late at night police can be called
Iāve been through this with a noisy housing trust tenant in the opposing building. The issue ended up being measured in years. Diaries were kept. Video evidence was gathered showing the time on the tv news & then the noise outside. I got the housing trust involved. My tenant had the council involved. The police were called a number of times. None of it made a difference. In the end I transferred the tenancy to another property. I installed triple glazing once my tenant had vacated. Whilst decorating I watched the problem neighbour being carted off in cuffs by the police. After 3 years, problem solved by the noisy neighbours own actions. Itās quiet now. Moral of the story is that nobody will be in residence forever. People that cause problems tend to cause themselves problems too. Unfortunately, until that day, all you can do is try everything suggested here. Donāt get your hopes up for a quick fix though, itās an unlikely outcome. Sorry, but itās the painful truth.
You are not responsible for this, they should approach the council and then the landlord of the noisemakers can take appropriate action on his/her tenant.
So it is a Council tenant on benefit that took them 3 years to be removed and you had to move your tenant to another property of yours to prevent from losing your tenant due to Noise?
Iād imagine if it is not adjacent to your property it would be less of a problem or at least others living their will have a go at suing them too?
Hi Dave,
Yes, and the housing association couldnāt have cared less. 1 emailed reply isnāt impressive at all. The building is opposite, so the noise reverberated between the buildings. The police apparently donāt have any jurastiction in noise cases. The council clearly didnāt want to put any resources into solving the problem. I did move my tenant as she is a truly excellent tenant., and they are worth holding onto when one comes along. I was involved for 2 of the 3 years it went on for. My tenant dealt with the council whilst I put my efforts into trying to get the housing association to evict the noise maker under breach of contract. Nobody did anything significant to help. It was only the police carting the neighbour off, for what must have been some other reason, that made the noise stop. It seems peaceful now. I just hope the housing association isnāt holding his flat pending his release. Looking back, I would have tried other ways, but thereās only so much we can do. I hope you find another solution.
Phil
I have heard similar about housing associations. great for the fat cat directors. I bet they dont live in social housing
Or opposite it either! And yes I know this lot are fat cats. Theyāre part of a more aggressive commercially driven property management company, but for some odd reason they keep it very quiet. Strange that, isnāt it?
The fact are with noisy neighbours you can go to the council,police, Enviro services ect.The end result it will take months and in the meantime the noise drives you mad.I had one who kept saying sorry when I went to the door, but he still kept at it keeping me awake all night. This went onformonths, So I lost the plot and put his windows in, this still didnt work. So I then went round with a hammer and was so crazed with lack of sleep I nearly used it. He left the next day. This behaviour drives people mad and the authorities dont give a stuff, they let decent people down. Hire a thug to sort him out
Whilst I donāt condone violence of any nature, I think I would have been tempted to go down a similar route to Leslie1.
In my early days of renting I lived in a the lower ground floor flat of my building, as a short term temporary measure, since a house purchase fell through, and I had to start work. It was before we converted the bedsits into quality study flats, and you can imagine the types we had in there, installed by the previous owners agent to pad out the occupancy to secure a sale.
The tenant above my bedroom, would watch international football matches in the middle of the night with his friends, and beer. So you can imagine. I would go round at 2 / 3 / 4.00am to tell them to pack it in, as I had to be up at 6.00am to get to work. His cousin lent over his shoulder in the doorway and said, āitās his flat he can do what he wantsā, my reply was ācorrection, itās my flat and heās getting his notice tomorrowā, which I did, as I wasnāt losing sleep for Ā£40 / week, and got rid of him.
This was however, 20 years ago, and a bit easier to throw your weight around in those daysā¦
I would have found it hard to persevere for 3 years.
Itās really hard to deal with asbo type behaviour these days. Iām just hoping that gov takes the hints weāve all been making & creates a specific court for housing issues. It would make so much sense and speed things up. To have a national register of rated landlords and tenants would be massively helpful too.
there used to be a housing tribunal 50 years ago
When things made sense and we had rights!
I couldnāt agree more, and well overdue. There is no balance in the current system, in dealing with bad tenants and necessary court procedures. As long as it remains so biased towards tenants, then discrimination of various types of tenants will continue.
I do not know of any other business where the government dabble and impose their will to the same degree they do with property letting.
Moreover, the police need to stop hiding behind the mantra of letting problems being civil as opposed to criminal issues, where in many parallel situations, outside the letting environment, they would be deemed criminal offences.