Antisocial Behaviour (May 2025)
Mr Z was dissatisfied about our handling of the resident’s reports of noise.
Summary
The complaint is about our handling of the resident’s reports of noise.
The resident contacted us in April 2020 to report noise from the property directly above her own. We looked into the matter and said there was no evidence of antisocial behaviour (ASB) but we had asked her neighbour to be mindful.
The resident reported further issues in December 2020 and submitted noise recordings throughout 2021 and 2022. She said that her neighbour’s laminate flooring was adding to the problem.
The resident complained to us in August 2022 as she said we had not acted on her reports. We issued our stage 1 response in September 2022, in which we said that the noise was not ASB so we could not take any enforcement action. However, we apologised for not explaining this clearly.
The resident escalated the complaint to a stage 2. She said we had failed to acknowledge the extent of the noise and had not followed up on previous warning letters which we had sent to her neighbour. We issued our response in January 2023 and said we would issue a notice
to her neighbour to remove her laminate flooring, and offered £50 in compensation for its communication failures. The resident remained dissatisfied.
The Ombudsman found that:
- we were acting in line with our policy when we closed the case as we had not received sufficient noise recordings
- it was reasonable for us to refuse phone recordings and request that the resident uses the noise app as it can be used in court
- we did not follow up on our request to the neighbour to lay a thick rug over the laminate flooring after recordings captured loud noises at night
- whilst further recordings were received and recorded as faint noises, we did not follow up with the resident on why we could not take action
Overall, the Ombudsman found that our handling of the resident’s reports was poor, and it did
not consider that our compensation offer was reasonable redress. Whilst the Ombudsman acknowledged that we may not have been able to act on the residents reports due to the reports not meeting the threshold for nuisance or ASB. However, we failed to communicate this to her
adequately and this caused understandable frustration and concern for the resident.
Determination
- There was service failure in our handling of the resident’s reports of noise nuisance caused by her neighbour.
Orders and recommendations
- Pay the resident the total sum of £150
- Review our approach to neighbour disputes, to ensure that we considers any alternative remedies in cases where we cannot take any particular action.