To wonder how I'll sell my house (neighbours)

[Hudhud35]

We want to move - however we cannot afford the £300k price tag of a new build (so we cannot sell to them) nor can we afford to do a 'we buy any house' thing.

Our house is an decent sized 3 (double) bed semi detached in a cheap (poor) area of town. Houses up and down the street sell ok - however our house is next to some really scummy people.

They're currently on the front garden, drinking, with cans of beer and rubbish strewn all over the garden and their back garden would put Steptoe to shame. They don't work so there always there - smoking weed, swearing and generally being antisocial. I'm also pretty sure someone is living on the front garden.

Last year we had an issue with their kids (preteen and 20 something) playing loud music but that seems to have stopped (for now) after numerous complaints from multiple neigbours (so we have to declare a dispute).

I will say they very much keep themselves to themselves but they just look a complete state but they really dont care about the disgusting state they live in.

I for one would never have purchased the house if they lived here when I purchased but the council evicted the tenants before and brought these in.

How am I going to sell it? Would someone buy it - maybe who hasn't got the budget for a nice area but needs a bigger family home?

Not interested in hearing 'I wouldn't buy it' as neither would I! But will someone?

The new EPC rules for landlords are a deathknell for BTL deals. They aren't active yet, but prohibiting letting anything below a C rating is going to bring a lot of BTL property back for sale, Basically, only owner-occupiers are going to be allowed to live in energy sub-standard buildings.

Maybe just try and get the timing right, so put it on the market late autumn so you have a good few months to conclude a sale. It's a long winter we have in the UK so fingers crossed that'll be enough time.

My DM is looking to do a purchase and then rent it out on a council house near where we live, she’s driven past a lot and I’ve walked/driven through the area a few times to get a feel for the street and houses. Luckily on the whole it seems really nice!

They can make them clean up they're garden though. It should be part of they're tenancy it is mine. They don't work so no excuse not to.

Forgot part of my post. I asked the neighbours to keep the dog noise down while I did viewings. She shrugged and said nothing she could do (they never walked them). I was fuming. Regardless, the week after, nice as pie, I went around with a bunch of flowers to 'thank them for trying with the dogs the last week, I could hear the difference'. They did make some effort after that - they were just inclined to oppose anything I 'demanded' but being warm worked better. Completely fake as it was.

🙄

I had an aunt with awful anti social neighbour's, never thought she'd sell..eventually a buy to rent landlord purchased it at below market price, stating he had ways and means of dealing with people like Aunts neighbour's, and was fairly confident he and his 'business partners' could persuade them to shape up or leave.

You'll sell OP, some investors like the challenge of dealing with this kind of thing if the price is right.

Go next door, be super polite and explain your situation. Offer to pay for a gardener to tidy up their front and back garden, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t say no to a freebie. Then depending on how reasonable they are - you could ask them if you could let them know when viewings are happening and ask if they could not be in the front garden when viewings take place. If they do it the first time make sure you take round a bottle of wine and hope that they keep it up.
As others have said start getting it marketed at the end of summer ready for autumn/winter.

This. You catch more flies with honey….

We are the same situation with our neighbours. I have considered doing this. However, I thought that when you sell, you have to declare any problems with neighbours, including complaints made to landlords, to the seller. Am I incorrect?

This is my problem too, the house next to me is a BTL and now an unofficial HMO with at least 10 adults crammed in a two up two down, they make money by collecting and selling scrap, the noise and the mess has nearly caused me to have a breakdown, council are investigating now. The only way I could sell my house is to another BTL landlord and anyway I cannot afford to move to ab better area. I have learnt a very hard lesson as to the extent that problem neighbours can affect your life and you have my sympathy. I think the advice about waiting until the dark nights arrive again is good, at least your neighbours should be inside more. I had a high fence put up, it really makes a difference, the mess is now not visible from my home and that is a small mercy

dont bother with the council my friend complained abut the noise nextdoor to her various times they gave her something to record sound-eventually they turned in down but then started letting their dog shit in the communal garden

nothing was done about that and an extra person was living there who wasnt supposed to be they done bugger all

This sounds fine in theory, wouldn't work with my neighbours, they cannot speak English and live in a very different way. I have a friend who has horrendous neighbours, they deal drugs, shout and yell til the early hours, burn rubbish regularly. Her polite requests asking them to keep the noise down had just resulted in them making even more noise and they mock her and things are now even worse. Just be aware that some people simply are not reasonable and think that when they are at home they can do exactly as they please and not care about the effect on others. It's worth a try but I hope it doesn't backfire

You just have to put it on the market priced to sell. We had this, I spent hours scrubbing the close, painting the external door (that my neighbour kicked in everytime she forgot her keys), powerwashing the garden and laying gravel and making the shared garden look nice. Had to move a neighbours crack pipe and dispose of a few needles in the process. It took 4 months and only had 2 viewings but a young single guy bought it and to be fair it was a beautiful flat before we had kids...the neighbours kept themselves to themselves but didn't want to be taking my DS out to nursery and bumping into neighbours 'clients' on the way out anymore.

BTL has destroyed the area I live in, of course a landlord will buy it and you can escape, I wish I could.

Are you sure you couldn't do a we buy any house type thing, you won't get top price but you're not going to anyway, have you got any quotes? As said above try in the winter when neighbours won't be so visible and it should go through quickly. Or sell as a potential BTL or as a potential HMO.

If it's Council / Housing Assoc tenants, can you approach them to see if they would want to buy your half? From a portfolio point of view, owning both halves of a semi makes good sense with regard to maintenance etc.

To be honest if I liked the house and it was a good price I wouldn't care.

What stood out to me is the phrase 'they keep themselves to themselves' and thats EXACTLY what I like in a neighbor.

I dont care about their landscaping skills, their career path or such... the only thing that would put me off from what you said is noise (I have young kids who go to bed at 8).

Frankly the best neighbors I have had weren't too far off what you describe (unemployed childless partiers who sat on the step drinking and smoking all day but where always respectful, generous and friendly to us for the whole 3 years we lived there).

The worst neighbor I ever had was a 'successful career & family man' who was an utter sexist psycho control freak, who thought because I'm a little lady he could force me to live under his 'rules' as if I was a child (and you should have heard the way he spoke to his wife & kids, thin walls I could hear it all).

Books covers rarely tell the whole story.

Complain to the council. If they evicted the previous tenants they could surely evict these.

OP put it up for sale and then see how it goes. Someone from the area might buy it and not be not be bothered about the neighbours (this often happens in my mums estate)

Firstly report them for anti social behaviour and keep reporting.
Report the state of the garden .
complain to your local councillors .
We had similar scenerio and they ended up getting evicted .

Yes your house will sell ! Don't worry about the neighbours, as my friend has just sold hers with a very similar neighbour problem. Are these neighbours out in the summer months? If so, you could put it on the market once the autumn chills set in?

This is what I had to do sadly when I had bad neighbours.

i have had a similar experience. I brought an ex council house as it was lovely but when the elderly neighbour died, she was replaced by neighbours from hell. Very much like what you describe, front and back garden an absolute shit hole. They didn’t work so there was very little respite and don’t get me started on their hot tub antics. I put the house on the Market. Didn’t have a sign but became increasingly despondent seeing people pull up outside with the estate agents particulars then drive off when they saw the neighbouring property. My salvation came in the guise of a buy to let landlord who wanted the property to rent back to the council. I didn’t make as much money as perhaps I could have but in all honesty I would have felt guilty selling it to a lovely family who had scraped the money together or had a big mortgage. My old house is filled with people that are very similar to my neighbours from hell and they all get on fantastically as no one has to get to work or sleep at night!

A high fence, with trellis on the top, in the back and an offer to tidy the front garden. On the market at the beginning of October.

The fence will hide the rubbish mainly, so it shouldn’t be seen as a too much of a problem but the back garden will be obvious enough to justify “yes we have to declare a neighbourhood dispute because we complained about the back garden before we put the fence up.”