Our buyers saying we didn't disclose neighbours.

[ihateconfrontation]

So we sold our house and exchanged and completed a few weeks ago.
Moving as we had to move area for work.
On solicitors forms it asked if we had any neighbourhood disputes, we answered no, which was true.
We were one of the middle houses in a terrace. One side had 4 teenage boys and parents and the other side is a multi occupancy let.
Both properties had noise coming from them which was to be expected, multi occupancy house had people smoking outside and chatting in normal volume voices until maybe 10pm, other side the teenage boys bickered occasionally and slammed doors when in a strop.
Both houses played music, but never past 10pm and not loud, just at music listening volume!
I've got noisy pre schoolers, so guessed that we made noise of our own.
Anyway, our buyers ended up with my email address and we've been getting constant emails saying we should have disclosed the neighbours and how loud they were on solicitors forms.
They are threatening to sue us and say that the noise is at an unacceptable level and I should have told them.
I feel awful as they've spend half a million pounds on a property that they clearly aren't happy in, but we lived there happily for 6 years and classed it just as neighbour noise.
What can I do? Can they sue?

The buyers solicitor will be able to check with the Police and Council and they find the complaint, they can sue and they will win.

Thanks for your legal expertise but they would win only if they could show that not knowing that the OP had called about the police about some different neighbours years ago had directly led to a situation that harmed their enjoyment of the property and so that they had essentially overpaid for it. They won't be able to show this and so the chances of them winning in court are slight to non-existent, which I suspect is exactly what their solicitor told them and so why they approached OP directly.

I don’t think Peter has any legal knowledge.

OP,, no recorded dispute, nothing to worry about.

@FlamingoAndJohn
I can’t get past that someone bought a terrace for 1/2 a million....

I used to rent a 1 bedroom mid terraced house in Surrey that I was shocked to learn was bought by the landlord for £560,000 !

I think you lied - a HMO is not simply ’rented out’ ended out’. You hid the truth consciously and deliberately. That is wrong but wouldn’t win in court. We advised our son not to involve the police with a neighbour flats comings and goings because he was about to sell. Police involvement would potentially put off buyers.

I can’t imagine anyone daft enough to buy a terraced house without knocking on the neighbours doors to ask about potential problems, visiting and researching the neighbourhood for school performance, criminal activity, planning applications etc. Did they not view in the evening or at a weekend? Did they not specifically ask about noise levels through the walls? More fool them.

Oh god it's the wannabe lawyers again, spouting their bollocks about things they don't understand. No, a call to police or social services about welfare concerns for a vulnerable child or adult is NOT a neighbourly dispute. The fact you lived next door is irrelevant, a passerby could have made the call after hearing worrying noise.

And as for telling prospective buyers every negative thing that they might find annoying, should I tell everyone that the bloke next door committed suicide in his house, in case the buyer is a spiritualist and gets upset about bad vibes coming through the walls? No, because as has been stated repeatedly, it is the responsibility of the buyer to do a bit of research about things which are a particular issue for them. One man's unbearable noise is another's background hum.

@CherryPavlova so moral... until “We advised our son not to involve the police with a neighbour flats comings and goings because he was about to sell. Police involvement would potentially put off buyers”

Er, so you advised deliberately manipulating the situation to hide reality. Good honest conduct there

No we didn’t encourage him to lie, intheningnangnong, we advised him against calling the police about something that there was no evidence to support. We believe he was overreacting to his neighbour having visitors in lockdown. Not something that is likely to impact on house buyers long term but would have to be declared if reported.
We simply couldn’t see why he would want to turn into a DM reader who just felt everything, and everyone, should be reported.

For us terrace lovers ...

Cambridge terrace for £1.5million beautifully renovated

Cambridge terrace £550k in need of complete renovation - check out the TV in the living room!

I can’t imagine anyone daft enough to buy a terraced house without knocking on the neighbours doors to ask about potential problems

Oh Cherry! Can you imagine how that would go? "Hello - Mr Pavlova and I are thinking of buying no. 72. Have the owners ever complained about you being noisy, battering your spouse, dealing drugs or running a brothel? How many kids do you have? Are they quiet or do they play their boogie box a bit loud after 7pm?"

@ImaginaryCat

Oh god it's the wannabe lawyers again, spouting their bollocks about things they don't understand. No, a call to police or social services about welfare concerns for a vulnerable child or adult is NOT a neighbourly dispute. The fact you lived next door is irrelevant, a passerby could have made the call after hearing worrying noise.

And as for telling prospective buyers every negative thing that they might find annoying, should I tell everyone that the bloke next door committed suicide in his house, in case the buyer is a spiritualist and gets upset about bad vibes coming through the walls? No, because as has been stated repeatedly, it is the responsibility of the buyer to do a bit of research about things which are a particular issue for them. One man's unbearable noise is another's background hum.

www.howellslegal.co.uk/news/post/Selling-a-Property-with-Noisy-Neighbours-Conveyancing-FAQs

They complained about what they heard, i,e. the noise.
The point is, it is not up to seller to make a judgement, because if there is a dispute the failure to report, can be used against them.

Let them go to court and explain it.
I

They're idiots for spending that much without researching the property. We have moved many times, and where there have been neighbours have visited the area at different times of day, weekends, sometimes knocked on a neighbour's door to ask them something about the area ( and check them out). You can never take a seller's word for something like this, sorry OP, and we all have different tolerances for noise.

I've sold two 'problem' properties, one with a previous dispute and one where police had been called on a neighbour (but not by us but the other flat in the property). In both cases the neighbours involved had moved on. In the dispute case the solicitor advised that it didn't count as there were new owners who caused no problems in the property and in the other the different solicitor advised that it was a criminal matter which wouldn't count as a neighbour dispute it genuinely was neighbours doing something illegal rather than causing a problem and they were charged, not sure what the outcome for them was in the end as they never came back and were renters

My current home the owners did fail to declare the neighbour dispute and we did end up with evidence of that. Technically the house is still in the estate of the now long deceased problem neighbour, so we've been advised we will likely have to declare it but it will be seen as resolved due to owners death and no issues with people who have lived in it at various times since.

Exactly @Bells3032 thars why I have been sat outside our potential new home at different times over the last couple of days. Il be going again tonight after dark. I have also said hello to the neighbours.

More fool them op. Just ignore. I doubt they can sue you.

@LaureBerthaud

I can’t imagine anyone daft enough to buy a terraced house without knocking on the neighbours doors to ask about potential problems

Oh Cherry! Can you imagine how that would go? "Hello - Mr Pavlova and I are thinking of buying no. 72. Have the owners ever complained about you being noisy, battering your spouse, dealing drugs or running a brothel? How many kids do you have? Are they quiet or do they play their boogie box a bit loud after 7pm?"

No, I'm not that daft but maybe "We're thinking about number 72 - and just wanted to say hello. Have you lived her long? Is it a good road? What are the neighbours like?"

How they respond will tell you an awful lot. If, before answering, you get numerous bolts being undone, an inner metal gate and Rottweilers barking, then there might be a few concern.

If its a hassled mum who tells you she can't speak long because they are just off to school with her two rather sweet children, there is less concern. You then ask the children if they like football or play the drums. The neighbours house tells you much - a pile of motorcycles in various states of repair in the garden - take a wide berth. Curtains hanging off poles and broken windows - wide berth, lots of barking dogs - wide berth.

Wow half a million and not even a semi!

Wow half a million and not even a semi!

People still making this daft comment i n spite of what's been posted above.

The thing about properties that are HMOs/rented is that you could have a nightmare tenant moving in at any time...people come and go so you could have had good tenants for years but your buyer might have moved in and found that new people are renting next door and causing a nuisance. This is not your responsibility. You have no ongoing, unresolved noise complaint lodge with the police or the local authority and Anyway in many places, such as London or any city, I would say you will always have someone hanging around the streets or playing music at some point...there is always some amount of noise to be expected. These people should also have checked that the properties next door were HMOs because that is always a potential issue as there is a higher turnover of residents who might not care as much about the property and their neighbours as owners would...

Sorry, this is a slight tangent - is it normal for a buyer and seller to exchange contact details?

Ours is currently on the market and I assumed all contact would be through agents and solicitors and the buyer would be no more than a name on a document to us. (I bought at auction so my buying experience wasn't through conventional means).

@ChewChewsBiscuitTin no it's not normal.
And I would 100% recommend against it!

@ihateconfrontation oh thank god! I hate having to deal with people at the best of times and moving house is never the best of times

@Aridane. Yes, I was referring to the type of due diligence that @Standrewsschool mentions.

When we bought our terrace house, we visited the street several times during the week/at weekends to see what the parking and noise levels were like- we were expecting our first child so wanted a quieter street. We also chatted to our potential neighbors.

Another house has just sold and we spoke with the new owners before it closed...again, they visited the street several times. It’s not an uncommon practice at all.

We walked around entire neighborhoods to get a feel for them when we were first house hunting so we could concentrate our search. The quieter vs. the party-orientated ones weren’t hard to spot!

I feel sorry for the buyers.
OP obviously didn't have an issue with the noise/ASB but most people wouldn't want to be stuck between 2 houses both with music on, up to 10pm etc. Plus the outside chatting and smoking which I'm assuming could be smelt in the house.
Bit of a fib about the house just being rented, that's massively different to a HMO!

I feel sorry for the buyers too as they’ve spent 500 K and they’re not happy. But it’s not the OP’s fault.

Seems to me that playing music, but not past 10:00pm and doors slamming, people smoking outside is entirely and completely normal life, so the accusation that this is unacceptable is and am fairly sure that Environmental Health wouldn't attend.

If you buy/sell through an online agency (Purple Bricks for example), I believe you have to exchange contact details as you do a lot of the work yourselves. My sister is buying this way and they message and phone each other about stupid stuff and became quite matey until a legal issue arose. I like the protection of an estate agent as a tbird-party buffer.