Would you sell what you thought was a forever home because of bad neighbours?

[MN2025]

Just the above really!

We moved into what we thought was our forever home in January 2025 - In the 14 months that we have been here we have spent over 150k on renovating it to how we want it!

anyways, the property next door went up for sale last summer and the new owners moved in back in late November.

Since they moved in, we’ve had none stop hassle - constant late night parties till 4/5am mid week, dumping rubbish outside causing rats to come in to my garden….
They also often have visitors who block my drive so I can’t get in and out!

We have approached them and they have become verbally aggressive to the point we had to call the police!

We really don’t want to move - we’ve made this our dream home but I cannot face living next to this…

If your neighbours are making so much noise they must be disturning others as well. Can you get together with others in the immediate neighbourhood and make a joint complaint to the council? Or sort of gang up on them. A few burly men on their doorstep may make them think again about their noisy lifestyle, A couple of times I have sent my relative and one of his biker mates to see a neighbour. Nothing overtly threatening but being confronted by a rather large bloke in black leather can be very intimidating.

I would move if they have bought the house and probably stay if they are renting as they’re perhaps more likely to move on sooner ?

@curiositykilledthiscat Maybe "in theory" you do have to declare a complaint made to the police but in practice you really don't. Do you think the Police will show up on the doorstep of the new owners of the house if there is an issue and declare their failings previously with regards to doing something about the neighbours? Infact I'm even surprised that the Police showed up at all because usually in this kind of case they just tell the person that they need to pursue this with the council and then politely walk away as long as there is no physical violence going on.

The thing is if the OP sells the property you may find that the person doesn't mind the noise - I know it is unlikely but they may just be able to put up with it because of their own personal lifestyle, so if it were me I would sell without declaring anything at all.

You would think so but unfortunately it depends on the layout within the property. For example, my next door neighbours have their communal rooms where they make a rammy up against our party wall whereas the neighbours on the other side of my problem neighbours don't hear all the noise we hear as they're not aware. It's too far away from their party wall on the other side.

Thank you all for your responses.

its hard as we love the property and what we’ve done to it but after further discussions this weekend, we’ve decided that we are going to get it valued this week by 3 different estate agents and then instruct one.

It’s gutting as if we knew this was going to happen then we wouldn’t have spent as much money and time in renovating the bungalow.

I think you would be better off making complaints to the relevant authorities if you want to stay.

The kind of nuisance behaviour you are experiencing will be noticed by a potential buyer - they will see the rubbish, any rats and if they drive around at various times in the day/night to suss the area out (which many do to check for problems) you will struggle to sell.

I say this as someone who was trying to sell because of problem neighbours. When we eventually got an offer from someone who was willing to put up with the “issues” it was an incredibly low offer. Nuisance neighbours can really strip the value off your property. As well as the money you will have lost renovating it.

We ended up fighting fire with fire - became nuisance neighbours ourselves. They were loud at night - we were loud first thing in the morning. They played loud music, we drowned it out with our own music. They behaved anti socially in their garden - we moved the smelly bins by the shared fence etc. Once they were on the receiving end they soon stopped. Sometimes it’s the only language these people understand.

Move. Be careful about what you say on disclosure forms though.

We are also at the fighting fire with fire stage and time will tell if it cuts it out and they reduce it or take the hint. We have already spoken with them three times in the past. We did try reasonable measures to begin with as we are civilised people. It didn't work. As you say, sometimes this is the only language these halfwits understand 🤷‍♀️