House viewings - neighbour refuses to take down flag

[KayleighhMum]

Our house is up for sale and we have viewings commencing from tomorrow - 7 in total lined up over the course of the week.

Our neighbour hung a large England flag from his top window on Friday and it has remained up. DH saw him outside the front on Saturday and politely asked if he could take it down before Tuesday. He basically laughed and said if any prospective new neighbour dislikes the flag then they won’t be the sort of person he’d want living next to him. It remains up now.

I am concerned this would be off putting, but speaking to my mum earlier she thinks I am over thinking things and it wouldn’t make a difference if someone likes the house.

Do you think we should try and ask again or would you assume it shouldn’t put people off? We are semi detached so it will definitely be noticed.

No prior issues with this neighbour who has always been friendly etc.

Do you think they are flying the flag because they are far right racists or are they sports fans flying the flag for the ladies rugby?
Unfortunately if it is the first reason then perspective buyers have the right to know.
I would assume the latter under normal circumstances but recently things seem to have have somewhat shifted.
Either way,as I said in a post on another thread, our grandfather's and great grandfather's fought wars to enable us all, what ever our views, to have freedom of speech and the right to express them. Also the right to disagree with certain views but not to enforce other people's silence.

So if someone's daughter is part of a championship winning football team, they can't display the national flag in support of the team?

OP hasn't said why they have the flag in their front window, yet people are assuming the worst.

(I'm not English and I don't live there so I've no skin in the game).

DH put one up for the rugby. It wouldn't put me off because I dont associate the flag with racism but unfortunately current climate would have some people making assumptions. I don't think you can do anything about it though. If someone loves the house they'll buy it regardless

Its an English flag and you are living in England stop being ridiculous! lol

Great!! How you going to risk assess that?
y lack of flag flying?

You ok living next to a racist?

If I’m being completely honest I would assume it was related to this protest stuff that is going on right now and wouldn’t get out of the car
I am guessing that he would not remove it no matter how much you asked

Well it would put me off. Not the kind of person I’d want to live next to.

Why are people pretending that any flags put up in the last two weeks are about anything else other than the protests against asylum seekers? It’s annoying me now.

What's racist about an English flag in England? She was unreasonable to ask.

I agree with you. The English flag is flown on all kinds of occasions including football and rugby tournaments and no-one bats an eyelid. The minster in our local, large, multi-cultural town flies the St George's all year round and always has, without objection. There is also an osteopath not far from where I live and he too flies the St George's flag from his business premises all year round - and he's Polish😅 The English flag represents the people of England not a minority of knuckle-dragging, half-witted racists!

I don't care what my neighbours views are as long as they aren't noisy, intrusive, keep their garden free of rubbish to help prevent rodents and don't try to enforce their views on me or silence mine.

I also wouldn't make a sweeping assumption they were racist purely because they chose to display a flag.

Unfortunately OP it will put certain buyers off.

Right now, it would put me off, unless it was clearly in the context of supporting our Women’s Rugby Team currently in some big international thing.

The fact is that right now the Far Right and Reform are using the flag not just as innocent/ admirable patriotism but because they are anti-immigrant with a strong accent of racist. Our flag is just not free from meaning, and right now that meaning has been captured.

Same.

Instead of your dh asking him to take it down perhaps he could have opened a conversation about it, asked him why he's flying it.

I don’t know why he has put it up. He has had posters in his bottom windows around elections before but flip flapped from conservatives to reform. Those posters haven’t been up recently but he’ll probably have one up for another different party next time!

Years ago we viewed a house that had a massive England flag flying on a flagpole in the front yard and very nearly did not proceed on that basis (the owner of the house was still going to be living on the street). It wasn't until the next day that I realised it was St George's Day. The second time we viewed the house the flag had been packed away.

That said, if I was a buyer and the neighbours had any flag hanging out of their window that would put me right off. I don't think you can ask your neighbours to change or hide who they are, but I think realistically you will lose some buyers as a result, but may gain others. On the flipside, from the buyers point of view, it may signal either a kindred spirit or a house they wish to avoid.

If I had booked to view your property and arrived to see said flag, I would cancel immediately and advise the estate agent of my reasons. Your house could be exactly what I was looking for but it would be 100% off the list due to your neighbour.

It would definitely put me off buying your house

We're in France and we said the same when we saw all the flags. I don't get why people get so upset.

Me too - I wouldn't bother going in.

Your neighbour sounds like an arse, but you'll just have to ignore him and be glad you're moving, hopefully soon.

It’s nothing to do with football.

Saying that though I don't have a flag flying on my house.

Id have maybe pointed out that ultimately you’ll be moving and it would be good to have a pool of interested parties so you that you can choose a good new neighbour for him…

We had our house on the market last year, almost every viewer who gave feedback to the agent, or who the agent showed around commented on the flag next door have hanging out their window as a reason they weren’t making an offer. We ended up staying in the end.

To be fair though, if you had to draw the stereotypical man who would hang the flag out of their window, it would be my next door neighbour

ETA - the absolute shithole of a town I live in is now full of the flags though, especially after the protest we had last weekend (it was like a zoo of the bewildered and thick, wandering around like zombies).

I feel sorry for you OP, as you can see from PP, this will put off a lot of buyers.

I've turned my nose up at houses that suffer with neighbouring unkempt gardens, so I wouldn't even get out of the car to look inside at a house with an overtly racist neighbour. Who wants to live next door to that?

It's not just the racist views, but all the other behavioural and social issues such people have. Shouting swearing, loud music, endless barbecues with men wearing vests and hard-faced women. What if you bumped into them and had to waste 5 mins on conversation?

We'd drive off with a sigh of relief that we had an early warning and look for a better neighbourhood.

But hopefully, you might get an EDL buyer who wants to swig beer over the (unkempt) garden fence with his stupid neighbour.