Complaints against other Residents

including Noise Disturbance

Living in a communal environment needs to involve some degree of give and take. From time to time a neighbour will be playing music too loudly or have guests who leave late at night and allow a door to slam. Likewise, you may be doing some DIY in your flat and cause a disturbance to neighbours.

Managed Partnerships are not here to resolve disputes between residents. We will help if we can, but our management role does not extend to a dispute resolution service. Furthermore, neither the Freeholder or Resident Management Company (“RMC”) has a duty to resolve arguments between neighbours unless there has been a breach of covenant under a lease or transfer deed.

The most common causes of friction between neighbours are parking and noise.

To see our guidance on parking problems click here.

Regarding noise, leases or transfer deeds normally have a covenant not to cause noise which is audible outside of the flat between certain times (for example 11pm to 8am) or at any time which causes a nuisance to neighbours.

You can report any complaint about a neighbour by clicking here. All complaints are treated in confidence.

Legal Action

If problems persist ultimately the Freeholder or RMC can take legal action against the owner of the flat causing the nuisance to force them to comply with the covenants in their lease or deeds.

It is important to note, though, that whilst the lease or deeds will usually have a provision obliging the Freeholder or RMC to take action on a breach of covenant if requested to do so, this will always be conditional on the complainant, or complainants, putting money up front to pay for the legal costs of taking this action.  Neither the Freeholder, nor a RMC, have any obligation to pay the costs of such legal action and, it follows, it is not a cost that can be put on the Service Charges.

Whilst it may not appear fair, if it ultimately comes to legal action it is the owners who are complaining that must bear the cost of doing so.