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4 Renting and Letting
4. Housing association tenancies
6. Problems with neighbours
If you are constantly disturbed by noisy neighbours, and talking to them about the problem has not worked, you should contact the environmental health officer at your local council. They can serve an 'abatement' notice or, in some cases, take away equipment (such as a stereo system). Or you can go to the county court to get an injunction to stop the noise. These procedures may also be used for some other kinds of nuisance.
In cases of harassment or anti-social behaviour by other tenants, you should tell your council or landlord. Some councils have mediation schemes to sort out disputes between neighbours. If the problem is serious, the landlord may take out an injunction to get the offenders to stop, or to evict them.
Some councils and registered social landlords have their own policies to protect tenants who may be harassed because of their race or sex or if they are gay.
For more about dealing with problems with neighbours, see the Community Legal Advice leaflet 'Neighbourhood and Community Disputes'.
This leaflet is published by the Legal Services Commission (LSC). It was written in association with Shelter.
The leaflets are regularly updated but the law may have changed since they were printed so the information in them may be incorrect or out of date.
Leaflet version: October 2006
