Problem Neighbours - What can you realistically do? (Long - ish!)

[mrspink27]

Thought I'd throw this open to MN just for an opinion really...

4 years ago family, moved into house next door moved from slightly rough, ok well very rough, estate on other side of town. Father and two teenage boys, we were informed by neighbours(elderly and retired) always in and out of prison for GBH, drugs and car stealing! Great! Mother is an all night taxi driver who likes a drink! Also younger daughter.

To cut a very long story short... the father now no longer lives there, he is either in prison or has an injunction that prevents him from returning to the town, mother and teenage daughter also not living there, disappeared to who knows where. This leaves a teenage boy and one in early 20's, both have ASBOs and both are banned from driving for 3 years. The house is falling to pieces, the garden looks like Steptoes yard and there are 6 cars/vans in various stages of disrepair on the drive and surrounding roads. There are weekly bonfires of goodnes knows what, but they produce black pungent smoke, daily revving of car engines enough to make you think the engine is going to explode out of the bonnet, lots of squealing of brakes, wheel spinning and handbrake turns in a quiet residential area. I suspect that the comings and goings of lots of other 'dodgy' looking youths is as a result of drug dealing. There have been several incidents where we have called the police; a fight between mother and son which turned nasty, a fight between brothers on the street, smashing up of one car with baseball bats and lumps of concrete in the street and last night a hideous episode where some poor soul was being beaten up outside our house,(he was threatened with all sorts of awful stuff and was sobbing for mercy)The police came and we think took the 20 year old away( probably to do with the ASBO) but he is back today.

Generally we have adopted a live and let live approach (unlike our elderly neighbours who have been gunning for the family since they moved in) but we are beginning to be anxious for our safety and the safety of our house. We havent confronted as we dont want it turned on us. (The other neighbour has been threatened.) We have reported this to the council, but they cant do much it seems. The house is mortgaged, although we dont know with who ar how the mortgage is paid as neither boy works?

What can we do? apart from move!

Sorry you're living with the neighbours from hell. Would you consider moving? I know you shouldn't have to but there's no dealing with these people.

Our house is on the market, but not really becasue of the neighbours (this is the truth I promise) Actually moving for the dd's school which is 20 minutes drive away.

You might find support here .

Thanks 80sMum, maybe useful to print some stuff from that website and pass it on to our elderly neighbours.

Don't forget that legally you have to tell prospective buyers of your house if you have had any problems with your neighbours, so at this stage I think I would keep as friendly as possible with them! I've just re-read your post and see that you have called the police several times - I would think that you would have to declare this. Do ask your solicitor for advice - if you lie you could leave yourself open to legal action against you later.

Thanks sunnyd, we have only called the police as a result of a disturbance not related/connected to us i.e. things going on in the street or on their property does this still count?

I don't think it does I think its when it its directly associated. It will come up in the various surveys even if you don't say anything. The council's hands are tied on this kind of thing where it is a private owned home. Could they tell you who its mortgaged by - if you could get in touch with those poeople and inform them of whats been going on they might be in breach of their contract etc and they might be able to be evicted? What a horrible thing to have to go through.

Thanks CountTo10. We had thought about trying to find out who its mortgaged with... but how? Did think about approaching the old owner to find out if their solicitor could find out where the money came from... probably get caught up in data protection!

Not sure mrspink27 - you really do need proper legal advice. My knowledge of land law is pretty basic but I would have thought that if they caused a disturbances on their property (noise, fighting etc.) that caused you enough inconvenience or concern to call the police that that would probably need to be mentioned unless it was absolutely a one off. There is increasing concern about "neighbours from hell" and my understanding is that the introduction of a requirement for vendors to disclose problems with their neighbours was to stop people unwittingly buying a house and finding themselves in a situation like you describe you are in now. If a property is mortgaged the lender puts a "charge" on the property - the charge will be registered with the land registry, but I don't know if it actually tells you which lender it is. It might be worth phoning land registry and asking. The only other thing I can think of, and this would be extremely complicated, would be to look at the freehold of the building and see if the owners were in breach. For example at our last house all the houses within two or three streets had been built at the same time and all the freeholds contained a "quiet enjoyment" clause forbidding any type of noise that could be heard outside the house(s) between 11pm and 8am! Technically anyone breaking this lay themselves open to being forced to forfeit their freehold. As I say though, very complicated stuff - you would certainly need an expert to advise. Good luck!

Sunny Delight, thankyou so much, we just paid £3 to check the land registry and have been able to download a copy of the title deed which tells us who the property is mortgaged with. Just checked through and there doesnt seem to be any restrictions on the freehold apart from not having a caravan or house on wheels on the property which they did have till they smashed it to bits and dismantled it bit by bit with sledgehammers about 6 months ago. You seem very knowledgeable are you in that field?
Had a long chat with senior env. health chap from local council today to and we have to decide whether we are going to make a fomral complaint which we would have to declare to any prospective buyer He was very informative and probably told me more than he should have e.g. about the older lads' asbo etc!

ok to start with your council can do something. my sis is an asbo officer and she deals with people in there own homes. they can still be evicted. call the council and demant to speak to the anti social team and put forward all your probs with them (im sure they know anyway) and if they breach there asbos the should recieve a jail term. if you want any more info i could ask my sister for you

There are 3 conditions on his asbo,he cant be drink in public , he cant go to certain parts of the town and he should not behave in such a way as to cause distress, alarm or nuisance to the local community. Hmmm, feels like he kind of breeched his asbo! The env health chap said there is more than one agency involved and that a multi agency case conference was going to be called and that the family were highly anti social and very unusual. No response from the community police person who I emailed yesterday either yet.