Disruptive neighbour tenants driving our tenants out of unit, what to do?

Hi,

Our tenants have officially put in a complaint to Body Corporate about noisy neighbours who are also renting in the building. The unit with the noisy tenants is managed by the owner, but he does not show any interest in resolving this issue with his noisy tenants. Other tenants in the same small complex have complained about these noisy tenants as well, but afraid of the tenants and are unwilling to submit an official complaint.
Now the lease of our tenants is up for renewal and our tenants are reluctant to renew their lease.
We would like to keep our long term tenants because they're good tenants.
Is there anything we can do to force the owner of the unit with the disruptive tenants to resolve this?
The body corporate has officially informed the owner of the unit with no response.

Thanks

 

1/ Do you go to strata meetings? It really helps.
2/ Ask the tenants if you can go for an inspection. Stand outside and introduce yourself to everyone. Converse. Bring up issues about noise, working together, links to other owners, etc. Absolutely No aggro. Not ideal but being present often has the best effect.

 

Get the phone number of the owner (from your strata manager or RP data etc), hand it to your tenants and ask them to call the owner any time day or night that there is a noise issue, we did that in Bondi, the owner a big high flier from the banking world also self managing, he soon got sick of the calls about the noise issue...... they don't have to say who is calling just say that his tenants are making excessive noise again!

We approached the owner nicely, asked if he could talk to the tenants about the noise, he told us he didn't care and to stop bothering him, that's when we handed his phone number to all the owners in the building and our tenants

 

Most QLD BC's will stay right out of neighbourly disputes which is a bit of a joke considering how much owners front up in fees.

Your tenants need to lodge a noise complaint with the QPS each and every time that the level of noise effects their quality of life. This is not time of the day dependent as there is no set curfew for noise abatement in QLD.

 

Call the cops if it is a real noise issue, they must act I would assume.

Not sure of QLD strata, but in NSW owners or residents of one lot must not disrupt others with excess noise etc, they should be able to force the hand of the owner.

 

What sort of noise? Loud music all hours or middle of the night talking on the balcony? etc

Do you know that the tenants are being reasonable about the level of noise?

 

Is it actually the responsibility of the owner (of the property being rented by the tennants making the complaint) to deal with a noise complaint? Wouldn't that go to council/police/body corporate, who would then deal with the party making the noise, and possibly the owner of that residence?

Cheers,
Inertia.

 

In Vic you can breach tenants for excessive noise, but it needs to be documented with official complaints.

OC should step in and issue letters to all residents with a copy of the rules.

I would also ensure that it is excessive noise and the type. I've got one at the moment where the tenant is leaving due to the neighbour making complaints against them - all other units said our tenants aren't causing an issue.

 

Join the executive committee of the body corporate if you can to keep pushing the issue. Ask the other tenants to take their complaints to the body corporate as well. Ask tenants to call the police whenever there is an occurrence. Personally, I would call the owner about his tenants. I'd also give his number to other tenants so that they can call him when there is too much noise. Good luck.

 

In SA a neighbour can apply to tribunal to terminate a tenant's lease agreement due to excessive noise.
Get some advice from the relevant authority in whatever state this is in there may be some similar rules where a neighbour can take direct action.

 

Everyone thank you very much for your feedback!
We have called a meeting with the BC, in addition we have also put an official complaint in as the unit owners.
The BC does have rules that are given out to all tenants, but unless they're bylaws, it's limited to what action they can take. Maybe some of the rules are now going to be converted to bylaws.
The police has been contacted before, but they're not really interested to come out for these type of complaints, although at least this way it's officially reported (not just noise, but tenants were threatened as well).
One unit owner lives in their unit and also put a complaint in, so I think our tenants are not making it up.
For now our tenants have agreed to a periodic lease, then a longer term lease in about 2-3 months time if the noise issue has been resolved.

 

Understood. You would certainly assist where possible, especially if the tenants were dissatisfied with the living arrangements.

Cheers,
Inertia

 

Very good question. We have one Tenant who constantly complains about "talking noise" from their neighbour.

 

Find out the noisy tenants phone number. Ring them a dozem times a day/night and ask for datto.

After a week, knock on the door, introduce yourself as datto and ask them if there are any messages for you.lol.

 

Datto sure does get around

Ponk, this is an opportunity to expand your property portfolio
Buy a new unit for your existing tenants to rent, and get new tenants into the old place on a 12 month lease
Win for you, win for the current tenants, though the new tenants might not be too happy after the first week

I assumed the noise would have been a BC issue, amazing what you can learn here

 

Ponk, surely your strata manager has a process to deal with this. If not, get a new strata manager.

In NSW, the Owners Corporation can simultaneously take this issue to Fair Trading and NCAT for a resolution.

Not to mention, the local court can issue a Noise Abatement Order, the breach of which is a criminal offense.

Hopefully there is an equivalent is QLD.

Alternatively, assuming the ne'er do wells park their car outside (and I certainly would not recommend this course of action in any way), after numerous requests to STFU from multiple neighbours without any success, some others have dealt with the matter like this:-