Nuisance houses, Scruffy houses and bad landlords. Can anything be done?

When you buy or rent a home you generally cannot choose your neighbours.  Fortunately the vast majority of neighbours are good and cooperative people. But there are times when your neighbour keeps their house in such poor condition that it not only affects you but it also affects the entire neighbourhood.

I have witnessed an occasion where a pensioner lived next to a poorly kept, empty property. It had a busted drainpipe and guttering, which was implicated in causing elevated damp levels in his house.  He asked Swindon council for help but at that time the council representative said there was nothing that they could do, as maintenance of the house was the responsibility of the absent landlord.

This is actually untrue and the legislation already exists. A busted guttering or drainpipe falls into the statutory nuisance category. I have placed a link to the legislation below:

( Public Health Act 1961, CHAPTER 64, 9 and 10 Eliz 2, Section 17. Powers to repair drains etc. and to remedy stopped-up drains etc.)

Tragically that pensioner has now passed away and during the last years of his life he suffered unnecessary anguish due to this damage. The new found knowledge of this legislation is particularly sad, as the neighbour I knew who had a dispute with an absent landlord, over a leaking pipe in an empty property never realised that it was always within the local council's power to have remedied this situation for a sum no greater than £250.

There is actually a whole raft of legislation that is aimed at making nuisance neighbours fix their houses!

A problem found throughout the country is landlords who feel they do not have sufficient income from renting their property.  Regularly, this manifests itself  as poorly maintained properties, which isn't isolated to a problem just for the landlord but in fact becomes a problem to the entire neighbourhood.  Several pieces of legislation were put into place to help resolve these issues.  Here is a link to a guidance document that is published by the government regarding best practise for this one particular aspect of the legislation:

Town-and-country-planning-act-1990-section-215-best-practice-guidance

Guidance PDF document