Can they sue for a barking dog???

[Oakmaiden]

Right- - I don't have all the details of this, as it is not my problem, but a family member. But it just seems very odd to me.

My family member has lived in her current home, with her family and their dog, for 6 years or so. Next door to them is a solicitors office (specialising in t"ax avoidance" for what it is worth.) and above the solicitors is a flat owned by the solicitor and rented.

As far as I can gather a new tenant moved into the flat about 8 months ago, and has been complaining about the dog barking during the day. The landlord/solicitor has NOT contacted Environmental Health, but has contact the RSPCA (who were not sympathetic to them), have somehow found out the mortgage company my fm has their mortgage with and has contacted them, and have sent a letter to my fm today saying that if they don'#t resolve the problem in 21 days they will sue them.

Now, my fm thought she HAD sorted the problem (although it is hard to be sure, as the dog apparently only barks when fm is not there - so she doesn't hear it), but even if the problem IS ongoing and as bad as the landlord claims - surely they can't actually sue them over it? Without involving Envirnmental Health at all? Or can they?

Any suggestions - at the moment my fm is reluctantly considering rehoming their dog, which is very sad especially in face of the bullying behaviour of the landlord...

TBH, your family member needs to take some specialist legal advice. It's not an area of law that is widely practised.

They could, in theory, sue for loss of quiet enjoyment of their property. What is more likely to happen, however, is that she'll get the dog warden involved. If the dog continues to create a nuisance then she may be forced to get rid of it.

tbh, having been in the complainer's position myself, it is incredibly annoying/upsetting/tiring to be subjected to yap yap yap for hours on end and as a courtesy your relative really should be doing something about it. She could take the dog for training classes, buy it a training collar which emits citronella when it barks, pay someone to care for it during the day etc.

I don't understand why they went to the mortgage company? What could they gain from that?

I think your fm needs legal advice. Does this landlord have proof of the noise etc? If environmental health haven't investigated then he'd need that surely?

Maybe they could contact env. Health themselves for advice on exactly what's acceptable.

Your fm should watch 'Dog Whisperer' on Animal Planet I think. Caesar Millan has loads of ideas on quieting a barking dog. I think one suggestion was buy a dog cage so the dog has it's own space. Tire the dog out before you leave and it should be happy all day.

While Env Health can and will get involved in investigation and subsequent (potential) legal action, there is no obligation to do so and private action can always be persued if the complainant so wishes.

We would always recommend working with Env Health as we have tried and tests methods but, you can't force people!

I with you could. Dogs barking are complete pain in the arse.

She needs to find out what the dog is upto while she's out. Is the dog being a nuisance? We had a neighbour who got environmental health involved because they were sick to death of my dogs barking and claimed it was making them ill.

Environmental health used some sort of monitoring equipment and eventually concluded that my neighbours were the ones who were barking. The investigator said they were the quietest dogs he'd ever come across. They only barked when someone knocked, which he said was normal dog behaviour and did not constitute a nuisance. The neighbours didn't want less barking, they wanted no barking, ever.

(The neighbours also reported my husband for his antisocial behaviour. His offences? Starting his car before 7.00 to go work and shovelling the snow too loudly.)

It sounds like your fm is going to have to sort out the problem ASAP, or the whole thing will get a lot more stressful and expensive. Barking dogs are a nightmare.

She has been trying to sort out the problem - she thought she had, but apparently not. In fact the complaints started when they rehomed a second dog a few months ago - that was REALLY loud - and was sent back to the rescue centre because it was disturbing the neighbours. The dog they have now has been living in the house of 6 years with no problems. And no actualy face to face discussion from the neighbours.

However, most of the comments here have been helpful - it is interesting that they don't need to involve Environmental Health. I had assumed that they would have to - and suspected that the reason they haven't is because they don't think EH will think the problem is as much of an issue as they say.

We also have a nasty suspicion that the reason they have been snooping around trying to contact mortgage companies etc is because what they REALLY want is for my fm to move so that they can buy the property - their flat has a flying freehold over my fm's hallway, which will make it much more difficult for them to sell, and we suspect the solicitor actually wants to own both properties.

Obviously they have every intention of trying to sort out the barking problem, it just rankles that the neighbours have come in at this like bullies rather than dealing with it in a civil fashion.

dreadful typos there... terribly sorry....