Buyers’ £100k nightmare over bedsit bedlam
‘Drinking and violence’
WHEN they spotted an elegant four-bed semi for sale in a quaint village, Matt and Hannah Graydon thought they had found the perfect home to bring up their family.
But the day after they moved into the £615,000 villa, their dreams were shattered. They were shocked to find police cars outside the door of the adjoining property, which had been converted into seven bedsits.
The couple claim that they have suffered a barrage of loud parties, drunken gatherings and anti-social behaviour ever since.
The Graydons sued Mark and Lisa Crook, who sold them the villa five years ago, claiming they had been deliberately misled about the noisy neighbours to induce them to buy.
But a judge threw out their £100,000 claim for damages, leaving them facing legal costs runviolence ning into five figures. Mr Graydon, 52, who runs a PR company, told the socially distanced twoday hearing at Central London County Court that his family had to endure the noise of loud parties and people coming and going at all hours from the bedsits next to their new home in South Nutfield, Surrey.
He and his wife were unable to sleep and had to shield their children from bad language and ‘inappropriate’ conversations.
‘From the day after we moved in, there were two police cars outside,’ he told Judge Nigel Gerald. ‘That activity continued for weeks and months.’
Mrs Graydon, a communications director for the private Caterham School, said drinking sessions sometimes ended in and ambulances being called. At times they felt unable to use their garden.
The noise was ‘phenomenal’ and she had sought to protect her children from it.
‘It’s not just the noise, but the type of noise,’ she added.
The Graydons claimed project manager Mr Crook, 49, and his wife, 51, must have been aware of the problems and made a ‘deliberate omission’ when the buyers asked about their prospective neighbours.
They alleged they had been led to believe the house next door was occupied by ‘two elderly gentlemen who played with the kids in the snow’. Kwabena Owusu, for the Crooks, said it was simply a case of the new owners having a different experience compared with the previous occupants.
‘Their case is that they weren’t significantly disturbed by noise,’ the barrister said.
Mr Crook said he had grown up on a council estate and had to get on with neighbourly noise, but insisted he never had anything but ‘respect and understanding’ from those living in the bedsits.
In ten years there, they had never had any reason to call the police because of a disturbance.
Mr Graydon said he, too, grew up on a council estate but added: ‘The level of behaviour next door... would have raised concern in any reasonable person. I cannot accept it was normal. It’s about people behaving in an entirely inflammatory way next to my family.’
Finding against the Graydons, Judge Gerald said he was not convinced that Mr and Mrs Crook had had the same bad experience when they lived in the house.