Our garden is not the cause for the lack of sale

[maoiBYRD]

Neighbours have just blamed me because our garden is a mess. That’s why they can’t get their sale for the flat upstairs.

They are selling for 10 grand over the asking price. You can get a three bed in the next road for 5 grand less, they are going with an online estate agent and you have to do viewings yourself. We are in the middle of a pandemic and no one is buying at the moment.

I’m currently clearing the flower bed of the “jungle” of wild flowers, potatoes and garlic that I created with my little girl, and trying to find a scrap man to take away the bikes and scooters and wondering how how I “shape” a bush that we really want to keep because my mother planted it.

Would a neighbours garden really influence your purchase of a property?

Im digging up the unsightly veg bushes. I will clear the garden. We don’t have any rotting cars or rat nests. It was just a bit overgrown with wild flowers and veg. :(

@Liverpool52 that’s bullshit, I’m afraid!

It takes literally seconds to pick up dog poo. Both DH and I have busy jobs with travel. And our home life is crazy with extracurriculars etc.

But gardens can be low maintenance. I don’t believe for a second that you can’t maintain a not-overgrown garden because you have a job.

I could be wrong, but I got the impression that op has the ground floor flat and it's her upstairs neighbours (without garden) who are trying to sell?
It's not next door.

I think you're right @Thisismytimetoshine, I was thinking it was the same layout as me. I've got a ground floor maisonette and my neighbour overlooks my garden. She's got a garden (they run side by side) but can't see hers, only mine.

I still don't think a wild flower bed is out of order though, only the scrap

It would (and has) put me off.

It would 100% put me off having now lived through the hell of crappy neighbours- years ago we had one who left a manikin in the garden with fingers up to the world- actually pointing at our neighbours but we could still see it....

It may be the feedback they have had from viewing has been the neighbours garden. Even with the online agents; they still ask you to submit feedback online.

yes. would totally put me off.

If you don’t maintain your garden, or your home for that matter, and you’re fully physically and mentally able to do so, it’s really better to just own it and say you know what, I can’t be arsed, I’m knackered from everything else and the last thing I want to do is trim stuff back or pick up dog shit, or clean my windows or hoover.

You’d get a lot more respect for it than proclaiming your job stops you picking up your own dogs shit.

I've had a house for sale that 3 different people said that they'd have offered on but wouldn't because of the neighbours garden. As one said I wouldn't want to live next door to someone who could live like that. They were nice people but it was a real state front and back. We rented it out in the end.

@bluntness where did I say we were never there? Let me help you without having to look back at my posts - I didn't. You're welcome.

Would put me of you can negotiate price but nothing you can do about shithole garden next door

[quote Liverpool52]@bluntness where did I say we were never there? Let me help you without having to look back at my posts - I didn't. You're welcome.[/quote]
So if you’re there why can’t you do your garden then?

Yes, it would put me right off.

You could ask them for help. They want to sell and your garden is affecting that. You want to get rid of the bikes and scooters but can't get someone to take them away. Maybe they might want to help sort it out by helping get them to the dump.
Yes, not their mess, why should they, blah blah blah but if I was in their situation and my neighbour explained the problem I'd be happy to help them because it would benefit us both.

Of course your messy garden makes a difference. I'd be really worried about moving next door to an overgrown garden full of junk, partly because I don't want to look at it and partly since I'd view the neighbours as being potentially problematic.

I can see both sides of this. I look very carefully at the micro-location of any new house.

However, I have dogs and hens and my garden is a bit of a state. My immaculate neighbours drive me bonkers with their endless build, slash, cut, burn and strim. All with massive powertools, every waking moment. Now they have lights on 24/7...and have put up feckin windchimes.

I have lots of wildlife but I think if you were buying, you'd buy the house next to my neighbours.

If the garden is below their flat, they need to price accordingly.

He's in kennels or with my parents. Doesn't mean he doesn't go in the garden when we are here.

Well if you're there, pick it up

I would definitely NOT buy a property if the neighbour's garden is a mess!

Yes it would put me off. I'd assume the neighbour might be into ASB. Plus that sort of thing is an eyesore. For your sake maintain your property

The only way I can possibly comment is to see the pictures.

I would never buy a house that had messy seeming neighbours. To me rightly or wrongly it's a sign that they don't care and if they don't care about the garden they may not care about other bigger neighbourly issues.

my garden is overgrown i dont like it but neither does my dh we wish we didnt have a garden

its great for widlife though theres foxes that regularly come here to kip

@lockeddownandcrazy

Why are you changing it - tell them it is your garden, nothing to do with them!

Perfectly proving the point that so many pp have already made.

The world is full of inconsiderate fuckers who think like this.

The trouble is, you will be coming across as at best someone who doesn't really understand the social graces that are expected of neighbours (such as the adverse effect on your neighbours of having a shitheap for a garden).

At worst you will be coming across as being someone who is likely to have speakers blaring music/screeching children/daily bonfires in their garden, as after all, its your garden and you can do what you like in it, eh?

Except that's not the case at all - everything you do has an effect on those around you...and yes a shoddy garden does adversely impact the price of houses around yours. In economics, its called a negative externality

I don't have the obsession I notice in a certain kind of English person with manicured lawns I thought it was a sort of joke stereotype when I lived in central London, until I moved to a village and the sound of lawnmowers started up at precisely 8.01 on Saturday and Sunday mornings (I once saw my next-door neighbour pacing up and down his patio looking at his watch!) and the messy wildflowers and vegetable patch wouldn't bother me, but if you need a scrap man to take away old bikes and scooters, it does sound a bit like a junk yard.

Everyone's buying at the moment. It's got to the stage you book your removal and centre selling and buying round that.

I started to tidy our drive more frequently when the neighbours opposite put their house on the market as I was aware that they would look across at our home. A messy view will definitely put some potential buyers off.

i think my point was i wont be tidying it but im not a crap neighbour when my ndn said my guttering was broken and leaking on their side i got it done asap

...and how can it be 'selling for £10k over the asking price'?

The asking price is what they have it on the market at.