Do I pull out of house purchase.?

[Highfivemum]

Purchasing a new property for our ever increasing family brood. Love the property, location and we have had an offer accepted on it. All going well until this morning when I was chatting ( within distance ) to a friend, Just general lockdown chitchat. She knew our house was on the market and asked how it was all going. I said we had accepted and offer and had placed one on another house. I then told her where it was. She didn’t say much but made her excuse and left rather quickly. She has just called me to say that she has to tell me as she thinks I should know but she knows the people selling the house we are after through a work collegue and they are moving as hey have the neighbours from hell !!!! The house is detached and is near the end of a cul de sac. The so called neighbours from hell are next door and she says that it has involved Police in the past. Apparently it has been going on for years. Loud parties. Damaging their property. Etc. It is the first we have heard. Nothing has been disclosed by the sellers. Not even in the form where it asks is there any issues. I would have thought police being involved would be an issue !!! What would you do ? I have called solicitor who isn’t in work but at home and not available. We are due to exchange by the end of the week and I don’t know the best way forward. I know there are two sides to every story etc. The sellers came across lovely though. Very quiet and in their 60’s. They said they were downsizing. Can we check somewhere of any incidents at the property ?

OP, put the address of the ‘bad neighbour’ house into Zoopla. It might have been sold to new neighbours since the trouble.

I would pull out at the first whiff of a rumour of a nightmare neighbour.

I know a family who bought a very expensive house in a very nice London suburb and discovered on the day they moved in that they had god awful neighbours in the estate behind them blaring out their awful music at full blast all day, screaming, shouting, fighting and swearing outside the front and it’s so disheartening

Too many don't use their heads, oh, it has WOW! factor, yeah, that's great, but not much good when your neighbour is a cunt, you found out later that the council was set to re-draw the catchment areas and the school where you thought your kids could go is now going to be the local shithole, there's potential for a CPO in the next year or so to build a road or the like, a huge shopping centre or new housing estate has gained planning permission from the council that will increase traffic, noise and strain on services in the near future, your neighbour has applied and gained permission to being an extensive extension that will overlook your garden, shade your garden, etc etc.

ALL this should be researched before you literally sink your life's savings and financial security on a place. I also have family members who didn't and it ended up costing them tens of thousands, and that was just the money part.

And OF COURSE the sellers won't tell you, they're not beholden to most of the time and hello?! They want to sell it! The EAs just want to make money, they won't be there slogging to pay the mortgage on a place you hate and that's about to be involved in legal wrangling because the CPO is £30k under what you paid for it, etc.

We had neighbours from hell once and had they not moved we would have. It’s awful. You can never fully relax unless you are someone that can relax no matter what is going on. Def pause and take stock.

I would also have a look and see whether the other side of the potential neighbour dispute has sold recently.

Definitely pull out. You'll regret it if you don't. Sorry OP.

Do some digging but ultimately pull out!!

I say this as I lie in bed listening to my neighbour using his petrol chainsaw. Don’t do it, no house is worth it.

Oh @Highfivemum try your best to find out the truth or pull out.

I worry you’ll move in to the property & you’ll be anxious from anticipating noise / antisocial behaviour.

your vendors ought to be disclosing this behaviour.

Your mental health matters and your home should be peaceful for you & your family

I speak from bitter experience x

Would these vile people have stopped us buying this house? No. Do I wish these awful old people could just fuck off and die? Every single day. Eventually they will. That’s what keeps me going.

Brilliant. Sounds like they deserve it. Hopefully not too long to wait

There is a website where you can check any police involvement. It's a couple of years since I used it but as I remember you can pinpoint place, date and incident.

I can't even remember what site it was at the moment but your solicitor should be aware of it.

I'll do a bit of searching and see if I can find it but as I said it's quite a while ago.

www.adt.co.uk/crime-in-my-area

Only covers the last 12 months but it's a good starting point

Absolutely not. The last 3 years have been absolutely hell. So wearing and upsetting over our "minor" disputes with batshit crazy ndn.

She finally died and our new neighbours are amazing but we were desperately trying to move within 6 mo. We will likely stay 10years now.

Miserable. Utterly miserable. Dont be a mug. There are other houses.

Maybe the sellers are actually the neighbours from hell. These disputes are rarely one sided.
Everyone thinks they are right.
Could you knock on the neighbour and say you are planning to move next door and wanted their thoughts on the neighbourhood...get a feel for them

Our EA ended up screaming at me because we wouldn't budge until we had some information
Threatened that the chain would collapse blah blah blah
I said if it does, it does, but I'm not prepared to go ahead until I had a response

Agree with Baconking. I’m not saying you need to entirely take their word for it, either, but it will give you a bigger picture of the situation.

I’m also dying for an update. I’m sorry this is happening to you OP but it’s so good that you’re hearing about potential problems now rather than later...

After a long chat with DH last night and also another chat with my friend Confirming that it was definitly this property we are buying and the neighbours and she said it wasn’t a one off . I have this morning called the solictor and said we will not be exchanging until we have an answer from the sellers and can he inform their solictor of this. We are worried their solictor will drag his feet in the hope we will exchange anyway. Our solictor said he told them yesterday that we wouldn’t sign so he is expecting an answer today. I have done some research and cannot see any record of any issues.

There's no particular reason for the solicitor to drag his feet since he can already charge for the work done, but frankly it sounds as if you've already got your answer

Put it this way: your friend, who presumably has your best interests at heart, has no reason to deceive you, whereas the vendors - seeing another sale possibly falling through - have every reason to (and have apparently already done so by failing to disclose)

So who's word would you trust best?

Hi OP. Just thought I'd give my opinion on this as it's such a huge decision for you although it it uncomfortable for me!

Can you do more research ie go to the house as pp suggested, ask about dc's ages (they may have grown up etc).

Ok here goes - when I moved into my house I was the neighbour from hell I think. I was so pleased to have my own home (shitty marriage) that it was like party central every day. Friends coming at all hours, music on, loud voices, people on the trampoline ...

It must have been very unpleasant for the people next door. They ended up moving (they rented). A few years on, having got that out of my system, I am the quietest neighbour in the world. The most I do and have done for years is read and hang washing out in the garden.

Just wondering if it's historic as in my case. I feel really bad about it now (Hannah, if you're reading this - I am so sorry!)

I hope it turns out ok for you either way. x

I suspect it will go quiet or the vendors will try to deny or downplay the issues.

If they now come clean, their estate agent and solicitor will know and they will have to disclose to any other buyers, so will probably stay silent and wait for an unsuspecting buyer. They may change estate agent and solicitor in the process too. Or take the house off the market.

Right for those hat are interested I have just had a call from my solictor. The sellers said there was no issues at present but on further pressing from their solictor. They disclosed that over the years there had been problems. They had not disclosed them as they thought they only had to disclose any issues NOW.! They played it down saying it was a small dispute with the neighbours over children knocking the ball over the fence and breaking something. I know when we viewed the house they told us children didn’t live next door so it is gets a bit confusing. Not sure of the other disputes. Or why police would be called. Out solictor has left it with us know to make a decision. We stand to lose so much money on surveys and solictors fee but do I want neighbours from hell next door. !! 😱

Personally think you'd be mad to go ahead knowing what you know now I'd pull out immediately before people drag their feet and you end up in a worse situation

Urgh, what a crappy position for you to be in OP. I'm sorry you're going through this. We went to view a house last year that was a perfect house for us, we were so excited to view. Then when we did a scoping exercise before the viewing the next door neighbours were in the their front garden throwing bottles, kids on quad bikes and motor bikes revving (before 9am on a Sunday as we'd stopped by en route to a dog walk) and just those 5 minutes put us right off. When we called the EA to cancel our viewing and they asked why we explained and they replied that we weren't the first people to have commented on the neighbours. My thought in your case would be that if you go ahead and then decide to sell you might be in a similar tricky position as a seller? Is this house literally the dream house for you? I also wonder if it's confirmed that the sellers didn't legally disclose information that they were required to then could you claim back some of your fees from them? (Not sure if this is practical or possible?)

So they’ve admitted something but it doesn’t make sense - confusing or lying? I’d ask them to clarify and specifically ask whether the police were involved or not.

Personally think it’s a shame that the unpleasant neighbours in these cases get away free, so many people move away for disputes that don’t get to the stage of involving the police as you know that it’s a re-sale problem if you have to do that.

Pull out. Your home is your safe place. It will cost you a lot more to move again in a year when they have destroyed your peace.