Legal obligation to declare neighbour issues when selling

[StormCattitude]

Can anyone clarify what counts as something you have to legally declare about your relationship with your neighbours when selling your house?

Are there specific black & white rules?

I (believe) it has to have been reported?

The practical, if not legal answer would depend on whether there is anything that could be used to prove a dispute to a standard required for legal action. Bearing in mind as a vendor you are put to utmost good faith in the information you supply to the buyer.

For someone seeking action, the gold standard would be an exchange of letters - that ideally have been circulated to 3rd parties like the council or police. You can then work your way down to any exchange witnessed by a 3rd party that they are willing to testify to.

Returning to the OPs question, the only rules would be those of evidence if any dispute were to make it to a courtroom.

If anyone is thinking of trying to hush up a neighbour dispute then they should probably start by not breathing a word of it to whoever is doing their conveyancing in case you manage to find one of the few ones that won't lie for you - even by omission.

There was a case a few years back - (might have made it to SCOTUK) - where a couple hid a huge neighbour dispute when they sold and were pursued - successfully - for quite a lot in damages. So you need to be careful.

Situation roughly as follows.

Neighbours build an extension without permission, I report it, would I have to declare this?
Neighbours later do further building work without permission, I report it, again would I have to declare?
Neighbours have a floodlight-bright outdoor lamp illuminating the back & garden of my house, it's regularly on from 6pm past midnight at this time of year, it floods my kitchen & bedrooms at the rear of the house, if I report this would I have to declare?

These are things that the council independently either follow up or or not. If not (which hasn't happened yet to anything I've had to report to date) I wouldn't raise it with them myself & make an issue of it, I'd accept they have the right to do something I would rather they didn't.

And also, because of data protection, how could anyone else know if I'd reported such issues in confidence to the council?

I'm basically torn because living next to them with these issues every so often isn't on and affects my family if I just leave it, but when I am able to sell up & move I don't want to be stuck here next to them long term due to having to list every reported thing when I'm desperate to get away from them! We've both lived here for about 15 years so there's a few things like this over the years, would things like this have an expiry date to declare..?

It's not really a dispute if they do something, you report it, and that's the end. It would only be a dispute (in the informal sense) if they come back and disagree and you maintain an opposing position.
Yes reporting things is more likely to lead to a dispute but it doesn't automatically make one (i am not a lawyer and they would be more cautious in their advice)