I am currently being forced to listen to my neighbours intolerable dance music until the early hours of most mornings...its loud to the point where its waking my kids up and they are in danger of falling asleep in school etc. Im currently dealing with both my housing officer ( we both rent property from a housing association) and also the environmental health team of my local council. However both of these have assured me that the solution is likely to take a long time. Ive been assured by my housing association that the police are obliged to act if the noise is after 11pm, however whenever i 'phone the police they say there is nothing they can do...Im starting to wonder if its the housing association or police that are giving me the wrong information. Any ideas????

November 27, 2008 by Anonymous

I am sorry to hear about your problem which unfortunately is not uncommon. It is not so much the case of you being given the wrong information as of you being given the runaround. Let me explain the legal position.

If somebody acts as your neighbours are acting they are committing a legal ' nuisance '. Such is actionable through the County Court. The traditional way which is still open to you is to file an application in your local County Court for an order that they stop the nuisance and pay you damages. The problem with this is that it costs money, can be cumbersome, and will take time. Over recent years the government brought in legislation to get round these problems. Basically this legislation imposed a duty upon local authorities to deal with the problem of noisy neighbours. Thus your council have a legal obligation to assist and take court proceedings on your behalf as necessary. The only problem with this for the Council is funding as it would that no additional money was made available for them to deal with this matter by central government. The consequence of this is that they are slow and/or reluctant to act. The only remedy for you would be to continue to put pressure on them through your local councillor/the press/complaints procedure which in the past I have found to work eventually.

So far as your housing association goes I am sure that your neighbours are in breach of the terms of their tenancy agreement. Again there is not much you can do other than keep pressure upon the housing association to enforce this breach by them and your right to quiet enjoyment. The police I am afraid are likely to be a non starter. Again this is a time and resources problem and although you may indeed have a complaint they should deal with, the bottom line is that you won't get much interest from them. A final thought could be to end this the help of your children's school. A letter from the school saying that this is affecting the children would be hugely effective in making the council take action.

I am sorry that I cannot offer you a magical solution. There are none. I can only suggest that you jump up and down on the council and the housing association and eventually some action will be taken. The only other way would be to bring a private action for nuisance

Permalink