Noisy neighbours - TA6 form when moving

[Mummie94]

Hi there,

So we’re looking at moving this year ideally but I’ve seen that you have to disclose any disputes with your neighbours when selling.

My neighbours have kids and they run around and slam doors at night when going to bed. It’s annoying but after 10 mins or so it’s quiet. Back in 2024, I was tired, pregnant, hormonal and quite frankly pissed off with the noise that night that I stupidly filled out a noise nuisance form on the local councils website. I instantly regretted it as I knew I would then have to disclose when selling.
The Council then sent a pack of paperwork to fill out which I never did and have never made a complaint again since. There has never been a follow up from the council either and the neighbour was never notified or anything so unbeknownst to them they have no idea.

I’m so miffed at myself for doing this in a state of being tired and stressed but do you think this will put people off buying the house? Would this put you off?
The neighbours are noisy at times but being a semi detached house I don’t think you can expect silence all the time.

Does the enquiry form I filled out on the councils website count as a formal dispute as it was never acted upon.

thanks for any advice.

You enquired to the Council, they sent out a pack for you to submit an official complaint, but you took it no further, so I would say that no formal complaint was raised, just an enquiry.

I would disclose it personally.

Its a tricky one, because the people who buy your house may not care about that sort of noise, but if they ever complained to the council themselves and there is a record of it on their system from your report, I think they can sue you. I’m not entirely sure how it works though.

We made a complaint about our neighbours and disclosed it on the form even though nothing came from the complaint.

I would ask your solicitor if it's likely to come up in a search. If you never completed the investigation forms, I'd doubt it.

I doubt the buyers could sue you for enquiring - noise is subjective and who's to say, from your point of you, you didn't have a re-think?

I wouldn’t hesitate to disclose this because if you put this in the property information form there’s a chance they could sue you. The complaint you made counts if I’m understanding this correctly:

https://www.taylorfordyce.co.uk/site/blog/blogs/disclosing-neighbour-disputes-when-selling-a-property

When any prospective buyers ask you about it, I would laugh it off as a minor and isolated incident and that you usually get on fine. But it would absolutely put me off buying and I wouldn’t even bother to view the house, but I’m noise-sensitive.

I would not disclose it because you didn't actually have a dispute in the end.

It would put me off buying a house, yes.

The best thing to do in the event of annoying neighbours is to go and speak to them (nicely). Often its the only thing you ever need to do.

Once a neighbour told me that she could hear my dd playing the piano. I probably shouldn't have put the piano on the ajoining wall but in any case, I simply moved the piano to another wall and got my dd to do her piano practice a bit earlier. No need for it to become a big problem.

Another complaint we had (😀) was that my kids were taking a shortcut across a neighbours lawn. She spoke to me nicely about it and I explained to the kids that they needed to walk around.

Anyway what i'm trying to say here is that next time, just go and speak to your neighbour.

If you didn't finish the process does it meet the threshold to be categorised as a "dispute". Possibly not. But ask your solicitor