Neighbourhood problems such as disputes with a neighbour or anti social behaviour can be settled in a number of ways - either by taking action yourself, requesting help from Citizens Advice or similar organisations or contacting your landlord, the police or your local authority.
NEIGHBOUR ISSUES
Disputes with a neighbour can arise over a number of issues including:
- Noise
- Children
- Access to neighbours land for repairs
- Boundary Disputes
- Repair of shared facilities
- Parking
- Trees and Hedges
- Use of CCTV
A complete guide to Neighbour Disputes is available from Citizens Advice.
Avoiding Disputes
If a problem ever does arise, your neighbours are more likely to talk to you about it if you have established a good relationship with them in the first place and a guide to avoiding neighbour disputes can be found at the Shelter website.
Resolving Disputes
There are several stages to follow if you have a dispute with your neighbour:
1. Firstly, attempt to sort out the problem by talking to them.
2. If your neighbour is a tenant, contact their landlord.
3. Use a mediation service if raising the issue informally doesn’t work.
4. If the dispute is a noise issue you can complain to your local council.
5. Contact the police if your neighbour is breaking the law by being violent or harassing you.
6. As a last resort you can take legal action through the courts.
Advice on how to proceed with each of the stages can be found at GOV.UK.
ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
Anti-social behaviour is persistently acting in a way that causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, for example:
- Threats or actual violence
- Racial harassment
- Verbal abuse
- Bullying
- Noise
- Dumping rubbish
- Animal nuisance, including dog fouling
- Vandalism, property damage and graffiti.
A complete guide to the definition of antisocial behaviour and how to deal with it is available at the following links:
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