To think this will be laughed out of court?

[NotYourNoisyNeighbour]

Name changed as people might recognise me from this.

We (2 adults, 2 children aged 6 and 3) live in a terraced house made of two combined flats. Our next door neighbour on the ground floor only has a track record of antisocial behaviour towards everyone nearby (she has been given a police warning previously for Breach of the Peace after yelling at me and another neighbour in the street).

A major bone of contention for her is the "excessive noise at antisocial hours" coming from our house. This is RIDICULOUS. We do not play loud music, have the TV on loud or have parties (if we have people over at all in the evening it'll be once a month or so, chatting in the living room, away by 11pm - nothing loud!). The children are upstairs (and therefore not in rooms next to their flat) every night by 7.30pm. We usually stay upstairs then too and watch TV in our bedroom.

The noise they are complaining about is LITERALLY the noise of us walking around the house, speaking at normal volume and the kids playing. Maybe the TV or radio but those are placed away from the wall we share with them and we don't hear theirs so I don't think they can hear ours. The only sounds we hear from them are things like the washing machine spin or loud coughing next to the adjoining wall. The adjoining wall has a corridor and bathroom on our side and on theirs I believe a bathroom, closet and the kitchen. But our living room and kitchen do not adjoin.(I'm just saying this for context.)

A few weeks ago they sent us a solicitors letter moaning about the noise and threatening court action. We can't really do anything about the normal noise of people living in the house so we ignored it. Today we got another solicitors letter. They are saying if we don't reduce the noise within 7 days they have been instructed by their clients to raise court action. We are not noisy!!

I really don't want to spend money on a solicitor fighting this ridiculous non-issue. Am I right in thinking it will get laughed out of court? They have no evidence because there is no evidence! And if there were surely the council would be the people to deal with it, not a solicitor? I'm guessing they only went to the solicitor because the council told them nothing could be done.

We live in Scotland so it's Scottish Law. TIA.

In Scotland you can go Court and get an interdict against someone - basically a court order stopping someone doing something. This sounds like what hey intend to do but as PP's have said they would need to present their case. The '7 day letter' is a pre- legal step they need to take before court action can be raised. To be honest tempting as it is to ignore it I wouldn't. It may be worth trying to get an appointment a Citizen's Advice to see what advice they can give.

If it is from a real solicitor, then it's fun to drag it out for as long as possible batting letters backwards and forwards discussing the alleged incidents and levels of sound in great detail (do they have a calibrated sound meter?).

Each letter costs them money so dragging it out can be hilarious for you and expensive for them.

I would re-post this in Legal. If you have had a formal letter before action, however crappy, it needs a response. You could do it yourself but need to follow certain guidelines.

I would write to the solicitor asking for clarification of what laws you have broken and what their evidence is. It will cost your neighbours for the solicitor to reply or flag up that they’ve invent d the whole thing with a scanned letterhead.

Emma got there first with v good advice

Have you actually googled the solicitors?

Anyway, its a load of shit so just ignore.

It's actually very difficult to prosecute people who are deliberately noisy to an extreme level so this is clearly going nowhere. I would just continue to ignore. It may not even by a genuine solicitor.

Ah no sorry @NotYourNoisyNeighbour I'm an English solicitor.

I bet there’s no real solicitor at all but she’s writing her own letters. Either that or she has more money than sense!

I know where I live the council would have been the first port of call if a situation couldn’t be resolved. Thy would measure noise levels and determine if indeed there was a nuisance then raise the issue with the neighbour. You are clearly not breaking any laws - you can’t tip toe around you house whispering in case the neighbours hear something!

Rather then totally ignore it could you call in with the citizens advice bureau just to see if there is anything they suggest?

Nased on what you have said there is no way this would go to court.

Check your household insurance to see whether you have legal insurance. If so, then it’s probably worth giving them a bell. I know you don’t want to hire a lawyer at this stage, but if you don’t tell them now and the situation escalated so you do need legal help later then they might decline the claim if you’d renewed or changed insurers with this hanging over your head.

So your previous neighbour had loads of these letters too with no actual action? Same solicitors?

I'd call the solicitors. take the number from their website. I'd tell them you know about the previous letters to other neighbour and ask them if they are not breaching some code of conduct by sending out letters harassing people on no evidence from a client who has been warned by the police over their behaviour towards you.

Or just ignore them. No court action will happen if previous history is anything to go by.

We used to have neighbours like this, who complained about the noise of us walking about and who also became convinced that certain normal things (eg Christmas trees left out in the street for collection on the appointed day) were orchestrated by us and other neighbours in a malicious vendetta against them. They were mad. They took it up with the neighbours on the other side too - a blameless yoga teacher and her absurdly well-behaved tween kids. The council had the listening service in etc, and eventually took action against THEM as the nuisance.

We were tenants, by the way, not homeowners. I doubt solicitors can do much, and if the council do get involved they will see from the track record of complaints which party is being unreasonable.

Have you checked to see if it is a genuine solicitor? I think you could reply asking what noise specifically. Also you should contact the council and possibly ask them to measure the noise?

is it possible the neighbours have an insider with these solicitors, who is willing to print and post any letter they produce? Seems weird that the neighbours have heaps too, and no action has ever been taken. I would certainly contact the solicitors directly and see if they even know about it. If letters are being falsified from them, they might take it quite seriously.

Your neighbour is taking a very unusual step of appointing a solicitor to deal with what they believe is a statutory noise nuisance. It's strange also that the solicitor is taking the case directly from them, however, I don't know if this is what happens in Scotland. If your local council has an antisocial behaviour team, then I'd give them a call. I bet that they know all about your neighbour.

Go to the EH team at your council - they will have a page on their website - they will be able to point you in the right direction - I would be tempted to reply that you wod counter with an harassment case however am not a lawyer.

Do you have neighbours the other side - as you could borrow noise equipment to record from their side and thus prove you are not the noisy party.

Additionally could she be experiencing noise from another neighbour and attributing it incorrectly to you?

I am a Scottish solicitor.I do not write any old rubbish in letters simply if I am paid enough money to do so.

I think it is extremely unlikely that this will go to court.However I would NOT ignore this.
Mainly because they might then go to court for an interim interdict and found on the fact that you have not responded.

I would write to the solicitors,by Recorded delivery,and advise that you deny the allegations and that any court action raised will be strenuously defened and a counter claim for harassment.

It rather sounds as if they/someone they know works for this solicitors and they have written the letter themselves and put it through the firm's franking machine.

I think I'd write to someone senior at the solicitor's, attaching a photocopy of the letter, and say, "Please can you confirm this attached letter actually came from your firm? It has so many errors in it (I'd have those highlighted) and the person it concerns is so unreliable and threatening, that I wondered whether the letter is genuine.

Ps statutory noise is a legal term and subject to certain criteria which is what eh would take to court if they proved it - civil noise issues I believe have a different criteria - this is what eh advised us when we did have a noise issue that they dealt with for us

HollowTalk is right on the money. Highlight the errors and send it to the lawfirm with a letter of concern about reading it. If your neighbour's letters are also from the same firm, I would also mention the stack of those as well and their support of harassment.

There's a good chance they're not sending them!

I’m a Scottish litigation lawyer - though this is not my area of specialism. This isn’t proper legal advice and you should see a solicitor if you’re unsure or want more information.

First of all, ignore previous references to the pre-action protocol - for an action of this type there is no compulsory protocol and protocols are rarely used except in PI cases.

If they were to raise an action it would most likely be for interdict. An interdict is an order made by the Sheriff Court to prevent an individual or organisation from carrying out particular acts or actions if it causes distress or damage. It can be accompanied by a claim for damages.

For an interdict to be granted there has to be evidence of a course of conduct by the individual which would justify the interdict. This is a balancing test - the court will not make an interdict where the restriction would be disproportionate or onerous (i.e. they wouldn’t order you to be silent in your own home as that would clearly be impossible).

For your neighbours to raise an action they would have to serve you with an initial writ detailing the complaint. If you haven’t received a writ, there is no action raised against you.

Unless or until you receive a writ you don’t need to respond to their solicitors or do anything. If you do receive a writ, then I would suggest instructing a solicitor as while it is possible to defend yourself, your interests will be best protected by a solicitor.

In the meantime, if you have any means of gathering evidence to support yourself, do so. This might be a diary log of times your neighbour has complained and your record of what was happening at the time etc. Anything you can gather to support yourself, do.

Hopefully it will come to nothing and this is just an attempt to scare you into total silence...!

Your neighbour sounds batshit but i would google the solicitors and also contact them directly not via the info on the letter asking if the letter is genuine and that you do not know what laws you have broken to have been threatened with court action.

Surely no trained and qualified lawyer would be so sloppy in correspondence? I’d be tempted to make an appointment with the solicitor and ask who has access to their letterhead and franking machine. They might be pleased to find out a staff member had been sending out legal letters from their firm or they may be embarrassed into admitting that the sloppy paperwork was sent by a lawyer.