Regret buying this stupid house

[Cantbelieveididit]

Not sure what I’m even looking for other than to vent.
I have bought a house and it was a terrible mistake.
I have financially pushed myself to the limit so haven’t got extra cash to do all the things I didn’t realise needed doing to improve things.
I bought the house 4months ago- had a survey done and nothing was flagged so can’t even blame that and we viewed it twice.
since moving in I’ve realised the neighbours directly behind are horrible and noisy- music blasting, screaming at their kids and arguing at 2am with a constant smell of weed.
Neighbour next door is a grumpy old man who is constantly looking over the fence and will only acknowledge my husband. School catchment is awful.
Another neighbour seems to have issues with the trees at the bottom of the garden, before we completed the previous owners through the solicitors said they were going to fell them due to a neighbour worrying about them, my husband stupidly said no don’t cut them. Now it looks like she’s investigating for subsidence due to foliage around her property (our trees and another neighbours it seems) .. nothing official yet so again previous owners didn’t have to do anything , they did cut them yearly I think, the other neighbour didn’t.
when we bought the house I couldn’t believe our luck- it was so cheap and thought it was the dream house.. new kitchen, massive driveway and garden, 5 bedrooms… now I realise why.
why was I so stupid to think we were getting a bargain.
how soon can we put it up for sale?

Surely the trees won’t need to have a grand spent on them to cut back each year unless they are unusually fast growing ones

the length of the garden at the bottom is trees.
the sellers reduced one (after my husband told them he didn’t want them to cut them all, they said ok but are reducing the one closest to neighbour as she was worried and said it was their duty to maintain) and apparently that alone cost £700.. there are 3 others of the same size.
The neighbour is apparently getting her insurance to conduct a subsidence report or something but it could take months?
Talking to my one neighbour who seems nice (and also regrets moving here) says she is a nightmare and basically never happy and basically wants all the trees gone completely and has gone on about it for years.
my husband is saying we can’t afford to move- we literally have no savings left and the mortgage on this was close to our limit. He is furious with me.

the high school in the catchment is currently in special measures and now my children are going to have to go to it, the oldest starting next year.
I can’t believe I’ve done this to my family all because in the photos the house looked amazing and it is massive.

there will be other schools you can apply for outside of catchment

it seems odd that someone in social housing would have buildings insurance, ie for subsidence?

The tree neighbour apparently owns her house, but all the others are social housing? I was confused as well but she’s saying she owns it and because she’s on her own she can’t afford x, y, z

Ho OP, it all sounds truly awful, even if you do make a loss is it not possible to settle for something maybe smaller but in a better area. It really sounds as if you’ll never be happy there and your marriage and family are all suffering.

That's her problem! As mentioned above - NO is a complete sentence.

She hasn't any way to force you to do anything at the moment, and unless she presents you with a piece of paper from a reliable source saying that she does have subsidence and the reason is the trees then I wouldn't do anything.
More here

Then she can call on her house insurance if there is evidence of subsidence to do a survey. If the survey says they have to go, your house insurance will cover it unless you have taken out a policy that deliberately excludes in or it is in your sale that you will be obligated to remove them [ie you knew in advance of insuring the property]

Just. Ignore.

And ask nice neighbour in for coffee.

At least if the school is in special measures, they will be getting new mgmt and a lot of extra funding to sort it out or turned into an academy. A local school to me has gone from special measures to Outstanding in the space of 5 years.

So a bit of an update on my situation.
me and my husband are not in a good place- he says I have ruined everything and am ungrateful.
he basically went nuts with me because I sent an email to the sellers demanding they pay for the cost of felling/ reducing the trees. Husband said I am completely out of order but I don’t care, we can’t afford to cut the trees and they can as they were willing to do it before we completed.
I also think they should be liable for any subsidence issues the neighbour comes up with, my husband says they arnt as nothing has officially been found- just a neighbour moaning at them and says I’ve made us sound crazy and they could forward it to their solicitor.
Should I contact their solicitor and explain my situation?

Yes I would always go through solicitors for everything contact wise. I would have already been asking solicitors where you stand in regards to the trees and plot/tree ownership.

Sorry OP your husband is right and no they won't pay for this. It's not their house. It doesn't matter what they offered to do when they were selling it. I'm assuming you bought it and moved in without a formal agreement for them to pay for this?

It's not their fault you don't like the area now that you've moved. I sympathise but I'm with your husband on this. Sorry. I do hope over time you grow to like it more.

Just to add a positive spin. I had a bit of a similar situation with the first flat I moved into with my boyfriend. I signed the lease without his name on(because I'm an idiot) We collected the keys but didn't move in that day as we had to pick up our things from separate locations and we also did an IKEA haul and then moved in two days later. During that time out flat flooded, I could see the water pouring out the door as we approached the street, it was flooding down the street ! None of the neighbours had the sense to contact the rental agency to let them know and didn't have our details to contact us. I SOBBED ! It had all just been refitted , new carpets, bathroom , painted the lot. And the immersion had been left on my the agent and it has broken and overflow pipe was pouring boiling water . The place was a sauna and everything was ruined. We were lucky the water tank hadn't exploded ! We rang our plumber friend who got us to turn all the taps on to help drain the tank and obviously switch off the water supply.
I thought I had totally messed up and curled in a ball and cried.
We just had to wait it out. Get heater and dehumidifiers in and repaint.
After we got over that, it was a brilliant flat !! I still miss it now ! We made great memories there. Moving is such a big deal and things do go wrong, but it's not always a total disaster.

Ok this is my second reply to this thread as I really feel for you. I am saying this with kindness. You are spiralling. You need to stop. Take a breath and calm yourself down.
Maintain the trees but put the issue out of your mind until the neighbour produces a subsidence report and then you deal with it. Your insurance company will help but you may need legal help. BUT you don't know if there's an issue yet.
We found our perfect home and discovered it was riddled with issues including a badly maintained roof. It was incredibly stressful and I felt a lot of anger and resentment towards the previous owners as well. But it's not helpful, it won't get thongs sorted.
You need to stop overthinking and as others have said, start tackling stuff bit by bit. You're clearly very stressed out and I completely understand why you're doing what you're doing but you really need to take a step back. Write a list, make a plan.

Hi OP my second reply too because I do truly feel for you too but I do agree with @kerryd278 you are just making things worse and you need to stop and take a breather.
I wouldn’t make a formal complaint, annoying as your neighbours are, especially as it looks as if you will not stay there long term, it could affect your sale.
Try to work at this together, it is only making things worse that you and your husband are arguing all the time.
Do look into your surveyors report, check that they didn’t miss something obvious as you could make a formal complaint if they did.
You are where you are, that’s not saying things won’t change, but it will take time and you need to use that time as someone has mentioned, get the house looking the best you can, and plan to re market in say six months time.
I do wish you all the best.

You should’ve emailed your own solicitor for legal advice if this was the position you wanted to take. That is why we engage them for transactions.
There’s an aspect of buyer beware. The sellers offered to fell them as part of the transaction and you (your husband on your behalf) declined. The transaction therefore completed in accordance with what you had agreed. I’m not sure why you think the seller would be liable if your trees (you own them now) cause subsidence issues on another property after the sale has completed.

but If the trees are the cause of subsidence then it would have been caused before we bought the house so surely it’s the previous owners problem?

your right. I am spiralling but it’s all consuming at the moment, the moment I walk into the house I see massive trees and hear awful neighbours- even with windows closed at 1am

We had subsidence and claimed through our insurance. It was caused by trees in the parish council gardens next to our house. It took 18 months to two years for the insurance to do the survey. You don't need to do anything to the trees until their report comes back. If you do, it might change their survey results for a start, but you are also under no legal obligation. If the report comes back that they need to be removed then I would have thought their insurance would pay out for the cost. We didn't pay anything at all, the insurance company settled it.

There no evidence of sunsidence - you have a disgruntled neigbour who dislikes trees making claims and threatening furture action that may and will likely go nowhere.

Once you'e bought a house as I understand it unless previous owners lied about something then onus is on you to have done due diligence with surveys. if there no current poof there are issues caused by the trees then no it's nothing to do with previous owners.

First house we bought we paid a lot for a structural survey that seem very superficial but when we read though was so full of pay for another survey cavates we clearly had no claim they missed stuff. That house was a money pit with diffcult always unhappy neibours so I do get the worry and stress.

I do wonder what going on with secondary catchments - was school in special measure before you bought the house ? One here was doing well and two years in head left and it went to shit - kids still did well acadmcially but all disliked the school from that point onwards. Have you looked at optiosn for avoding the secondary school - you can apply to other schools but varies and depends on circustances how likely you are to get in.

You could try environemntal health with 1 am noise - but again that would have to be decleared in next sale - is it bothering everyone or are you hyper focued on any issues now?

Don't let your partner put this blame on you. Noone forced his hand. He also had the opportunity to research and find faults . The onus is not on you! This is a team decision and he is an adult and an a*hole at that if he's trying to blame you.

It’s not their problem any more, as they don’t own the house, you do.
Hopefully it’s just nonsense and the trees are fine. It sounds as though the neighbour is a bit fixated on the trees, rather than that the trees are actually causing subsidence.

If there was no formal evidence of subsidence raised at the time the survey was done- no it's not their problem.

They offered to cut the trees back and your husband declined. It's inappropriate to now contact them directly to try and ask them to do this when they don't own the house and have likely spent the money on something else since it was some time ago.

I say this with kindness OP. Don't email them again without getting advice from your solicitor. I've purchased houses and found hidden problems in the past and had to get advice (didn't have a claim as house sold as seen) but I would never have approached the seller for money or to complain.

This is a good post. Your insurance should cover an my tree issue and survey didn’t pick up any issues.

Neighbours move all the time. Good and bad.

Put large bits of trellis up this weekend to stop nosey neighbours - lots of lovely climbers are currently on offers in garden centre whilst dormant - so get them in and get them encourage with feeding etc we have ours on decking in huge pots but also put in and raised the fence (ours) when we moved in. If your fence - raise it; within legal boundaries.

We put a huge passion flower in a pot back in March 2024 and it got moved when we moved in March 2025 and by September 2025 with feeding and trellis support it was over 7 foot high. Get a decent fence.

You can report weed smell to the council if it is bad - many people think you can’t but smoke and weed can be reported if they are supporting you enjoying your home. Consider when you are sleeping. Can you move your bedrooms away from the smell?

consider all this before selling? If you are going to sell have a reason with estate other than you don’t like it / eg change of work and needing a shorter commute.

But you can buy a house elsewhere - and within 6 months have the same issues with neighbour change.

When I moved 15 years ago my local school was in special measures but I applied and go them into an outstanding school out of catchment. Always an option.

I'm so sorry and please don't take my comments in anyway negatively. Completely understand that it's become all consuming for you. I think you need to try and break that cycle if you can.

You can’t demand they pay now. They offered before completion, your husband, as one of the buyers, declined their offer. You have since completed that that is that. If they had hidden a problem, fair enough, but they didn’t. They offered and it was declined

Sell it, I have disliked my current from the week I moved in. I’ve waited 3 years and just about to move but wished I’d done it earlier. Life is too short to be that unhappy .

Good advice.