New Neighbours

[londonliv]

We have had an offer accepted on a house & are hoping to complete soon. We are a bit nervous about our new neighbours though. We discovered that when the owners of the new house applied for planning permission in the past the neighbours objected quite vehemently. In their comments on the council website they made all sorts of claims about the property having subsidence and other issues. Our survey has brought up none of this & the owners have also declared they've had no issues with it either & the neighbours just said that to have the planning rejected.

The neighbour is currently replacing the garden fence & told our surveyor that there had been a boundary issue with the fence & that the neighbour on the other side of us was also unhappy with the previous owners for painting the fence.

The owners have not declared any issues with the neighbours to us & we are now getting slightly worried that we are going to be landed with nightmare neighbours. We're not really sure what to do as we really love the house & it is a great area but we are nervous that we are going to have really difficult neighbours.

Sounds awkward but reading between the lines the issue could be the vendors rather than the neighbours. Speak to your solicitor - I think it could be worth asking about the fence/boundary issues that haven't been declared, especially as one neighbour mentioned it to a third party. Have you read the planning objections yourself and were the neighbours talking about their own house perhaps?

Ultimately, if you to decide not to proceed it could be on the basis that the vendors haven't been honest and there is a loss of trust. They could just be the kind of people who rub others up the wrong way and are selling because they can't get their own way and relations have broken down rather than having been hounded out by the neighbours. Difficult to know but their response if the fence issues are raised could be key to working it out.

Have you met the neighbours at all? Might be worth a visit to see if you can work out who the difficult ones are before you buy? If the vendors are the difficult ones it makes no sense for the neighbours to try and scupper the sale as surely they would want them gone?

I'd go and visit neighbours on both sides and might well pull out. Having nightmare neighbours is hell on earth.

Yes, we're hoping for another visit soon & to meet them then.
We asked via the EA for clarification from the owners & asked our surveyor for more info. Reading between the lines it seems that the old owners & neighbour gave some bad blood relating to an extension they wanted to do & now rub each other up the wrong way.
The objections the neighbour made which included claims about the property were on the council website so anyone can read them.

I know the feeling. I had an issue with nightmare neighbours once, who tried to control everything in my garden, including what flowers I planted. They used to spy on me, hide and take photographs, and then complain about my flowers to the parish council, who were equally busybody, and who loved having neighbours complain about other neighbours because it made them feel important. There are some very strange (and nasty) people out there!