REPORTED neighbour to council

[Brighton5555]

But it seems I may have made it something bigger and now I fear the backlash.

For 9 weeks they have almost daily been doing heavy diy/remodelling/building to downstairs always starting around 3pm to gone past 8pm.

i spoke to them back in November and could see when they opened the door wearing those professional style ear defenders due to the noise from the equipment being used that there was no kitchen and the floorboards were stripped back .. that it was obvious they were doing the work themself and her son in his mid 20’s is a carpenter by trade so explains the work hours being when he comes home.

we share thin walls in a terrace and I’m the only joint house to hers . WhTs pushed me to contact the council was the fact on 4/5 occasions they have used a drill of some kind as late as 10.30pm making my whole
house shake knowing full well I have a young school age child and a Sen young person in my home that they will be disturbing given the time of night..

a few nights ago my patience left me when again on came this heavy drill in short bursts at 10.35pm and I called the council
housing team and environmental health hoping and assuming they would call her and warn her about guidelines for noise .

It transpires she hasn’t applied for any permission to do any changes or work to the property and they are now doing a home visit about the noise and about the breach of tenancy. The noise and duration is clearly not someone changing flooring or replacing a door it’s more than this .

it didn’t even cross my mind about permission and all that I just wanted her to be told to stop making noise after the guideline times …

she will know it’s from me even though they won’t disclose it.

im nervous for the potential backlash but after 9 weeks and having approached them once before I couldn’t accept them being okay with the late late noise …

Should I feel bad now it’s going to be more problematic for her given she’s not applied for any permission to carry out said work?

So you’re just utterly ignorant of normal things that your work doesn’t deal with?

You’re genuinely trying to claim that you don’t know that tenants don’t have the right to take floors up and remove kitchens?

Genuinely never dealt with tenancies or public sector housing ect in my career no. Checked with a former colleague and different local authorities have different contacts and some vary by property and when the tenancy started. Carry on trolling.

Permission is required if you have a landlord.

You've done the landlord a favour, unless he has given permission.

There is no trolling there.

Have you not spoken to anyone who has a council or housing association landlord?

Permission is required for internal changes unless is interior decoration e.g. painting, carpeting.

The type of permission can vary from just a heads up to deal with things like noise complaints, to detailed plans as if the tenancy ends for any reason the social landlord is going to have to make good their property.

@Dawbie no one is trolling you. Some people have objected to your confident statement as a planning professional that there’s no reason to ask the council for permission for home improvements, which failed to take into account this is a council house tenancy.

Anyone can be ignorant of something, but maybe don’t assert your certainty then.

We had this with a council property next door to our private rented. New tenants had workmen in for weeks before actually moving in. Whole kitchen ripped out, radiators, boiler all outside, banging all hours and work van parked outside ours. Eventually rang the council to report it. By chance they turned up when one of the tenants was there and inspected it. Tenant apologised and the council helped them apply for retrospective planning permission. No negative implications whatsoever. When they eventually moved in they were actually really nice and apologised to us for any noise their builder had made. They had saved up around 20k to renovate the house before moving in. If that was me I'd have used it as a deposit and bought somewhere not applied for council housing.

The OP mentions a Tenancy breach so it appears to be a council rented property in which case the Council take a dim view on extensive alterations to their housing stock.

If there is backlash the noisy nieghbour is the one who should be worried, not you.

Just make a log of dates and times of any contact you have with the noisy nieghbour in case the nieghbour 'kicks off' and if they do, the consequences go against the nieghbour and not you.

Just keep your local council and your councillor fully informed, you can find your local councillors' name and conract details on the councils' website so you can call them if you need to.

This should hopefully take the weight of it all off you in the mean time whilst you wait for action to be taken, against the nieghbour.

Hope this helps.