Freeholder / leaseholder rights/issue re noise

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I've posted about my neighbour before, he's basically a nightmare. Prone to shouting outbursts (the police have been round before after he threatened to kill some local dogs for barking and so has a neighbour seeking out 'that effing psycho') and he plays his music intolerably loudly. He's 40, smokes a lot of weed, doesn't work, barely leaves his flat and is just odd. Right now my flat is reverberating to the 'tune' of some incredibly loud gabba. He seems to put his music on to annoy deliberately, i.e. when I get back from school pick up the building is quiet, minutes later music is booming.

We are in the ground floor flat and own the freehold. He lives upstairs with the lady who owns the leasehold so I guess is technically a tenant? I don't know if being the freeholder and the fact he isn't actually the leaseholder gives us particular rights. Just wondered if anyone knew anything in this area and if there was anything we could do. He really is a total twunt.

bump!

The leaseholder/free holder bit makes no difference - both are legal interests in land.

However, it sounds like he is not even the leaseholder. If he just lives with the leaseholder then he is quite possibly just a lodger. None of this makes a massive amount of difference as to what your causes of action are in this case assuming that the lady upstairs is the leasholder in the normal sense of the word as it applies to flats (ie long leasehold akin to ownership) rather than that that she is just on a short (say 6 month) lease from someone with a superior interest. If the later then you could try contacting their landlord who will not be happy at the prospect of problem tenants causing problems with neighbours.

Have you been in touch with your council to complain about nuisance/noise? If not then I would recommend this and they should be able to provide you with some guidance.

Is the noise late at night? Is it possible that he is reacting to your kids being exuberant when they get home from school? Have you tried speaking to the leasholder about the noise?

Hi there aussieng, thanks for your reply. She is the leaseholder in the normal sense of the word and he lives with her.

The noise is in the day, pretty much all day long but not at night (because she doesn't like noise and has complained aobut our kids 'singing' before!) Alas I don't think there is much we can do and I actually think he's got serious issues and it wouldn't be worth confronting him about it. Thankfully we are moving in 6 months or so so this isn't going to be a permanent problem.