Selling A House, What To Disclose About Neighbours

[RedcarRacer70]

I'm selling my house, and I'm a little concerned about what to put on the Property Information Form under Disputes and Complaints. Back in November I had to contact my local council to deal with my neighbours children playing music at 930pm one evening. The Neighbourhood Team attended next door and dealt with the problem and I can honestly say it never happened again. Do I need to disclose this on the form. Thanks

[Redhelen72]

930 is beyond the noise hours is it?
I would be tempted to put it down - the last thing you want is for the sale to fall through or to be sued after for not declaring

[Peter Pedant]

no
dont lose the sale
this is a settled dispute, so say no
and good luck
I am selling too - fingers crossed for bothof us!

[Buenchico]

>>> I had to contact my local council to deal with my neighbours children playing music at 930pm one evening

Good grief! When some families on our cul-de-sac have something to celebrate (such as a birthday), it's not unknown for them to hire DJs with big professional sound systems, which they then place out on the street (alongside hired bouncy castles and booze-laden bars, etc). Their kids are usually yelling and screaming up and down the road until about midnight, with the music never ceasing to rattle everyone's windows in the street before 3am at the earliest. It would never even occur to me to complain about it! The people in your street must be really glad to see that the grumpy old grouch down the road is moving out!

However, to answer your question . . .

It's extremely unwise to fail to mention anything relevant on that section of the form. There have been cases where sellers have been ordered to pay damages, running in tens of thousands of pounds, for failing to do so.

Simply be honest on the form. e.g. "I asked the Neighbourhood Team to intervene when loud music was coming from a neighbour's house at 9.30pm on one evening in November 2021. However this was an isolated incident and there have been no similar problems either before or after that time".

Such a statement is
(a) entirely true ; and
(b) highly unlikely to deter any serious prospective buyer.

[Hymie]

I would not mention it, despite what Buenchico says.

Imagine the buyer moves in, and on one evening your neighbour plays loud music at 9:30 – and somehow finds out you reported the same thing more than 6 months ago. I would expect any claim for compensation to be laughed out of court.

Now, imagine after the buyer moves in, and the neighbour plays loud music every night at 9:30; even in this situation I doubt a claim against you would succeed since this is not what you experienced while living there.