Q: We live in West London, where almost every house has a burglar alarm. There are two or three alarms in our street that seem to go off regularly by accident, especially in the summer, when the owners are away. We have tried speaking to the owners, but they are reluctant to disable expensive security systems. Is there anything that we can do?

A: Noise caused by a burglar alarm is no different from any other noise. If an alarm goes off and the noise unreasonably affects the enjoyment of your house, this is a nuisance. If there is something wrong with the settings on the alarm, the householder may also be negligent. You could in theory issue a claim in the county court against the owner, seeking an order for the alarm to be switched off and damages. However, this may be expensive and it is not a terribly good way of getting on with your neighbours.

A better option would be to complain to the council. Local authorities have extensive powers to deal with burglar alarms, and it is almost always cheaper and more diplomatic to act through them. In addition to the general duties to serve noise abatement notices, your council now has new rights to deal with intruder alarms in the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005. Under this legislation, a local authority can go into a house to silence a noisy alarm where it has been operating nonstop for 20 minutes or it has been going off intermittently for an hour. The council employee needs only a court warrant if he has to force entry, and he doesn’t need to be accompanied by a police officer to do it. The council can recover the cost of silencing the alarm from the occupier of the house.

If there is a particular problem with alarms in your area, the council may also designate it an “alarm notification area”. This means that every householder with an alarm must register a keyholder on a list held by the council. Failure to comply is a criminal offence.

Keep the number of your council’s out-of-hours noise team, and ask them to exercise these powers the next time an alarm goes off.

The writer is a barrister at Tanfield Chambers (020-7421 5300). E-mail your questions to: property.consumer@thetimes.co.uk

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