My neighbour’s dog barks so loudly all day I can’t work. Can I use law to fight back? DEAN DUNHAM replies

My neighbour leaves his dog at home for hours while he goes out. It barks loudly all the time, which is incredibly annoying – especially when I am trying to work. 

I told him this was bothering me a few weeks ago and he said he would try to train the dog to bark less, but it clearly hasn’t worked. How can I stop this?

Anonymous.

Few things test your patience quite like a neighbour’s barking dog, and it’s even worse when you’re at home trying to work.

You did the right thing by speaking to your neighbour, as a friendly chat will often resolve the issue. 

Disputes with neighbours rarely end well and can also cause issues when you come to sell your property. 

Disagreements such as these are material information you have to disclose to a buyer, and it could well put them off.

In light of this, you should approach your neighbour one more time before taking matters further. Make clear that the situation is now untenable for you and needs to be dealt with urgently.

If the barking persists, you will need to turn to the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Under it, constant barking can be classed as a statutory nuisance, meaning it’s officially considered noise pollution.

Your next move is to contact your local council’s environmental health team to report the matter. It will likely ask you to keep a diary of when and how long the dog barks and may install noise-monitoring equipment. 

If the council decides the noise is excessive, it can serve your neighbour with an abatement notice. This is a legal order telling your neighbour to stop the noise or face fines. 

Alternatively, if you would rather avoid going down the official route at this stage, you could ask your local council if it can facilitate community mediation. 

Here, a trained mediator is engaged to liaise with both parties in an attempt to reaching an amicable solution to the problem.

Disaster cruise has left me high and dry

I went on a cruise recently and it was awful. I complained to the industry body ABTA and it is investigating to see whether I am due compensation. 

However, before I went on this trip, I’d already paid a deposit of £1,300 for a future cruise with the same company, which sails in six months’ time.

After my horrible experience I don’t want to travel with this firm again, but it says my deposit was non-refundable. Can I get my money back?

A. H., South Yorkshire.

The general position is that when a deposit is paid and the terms and conditions state it is non-refundable, the trader (here, the cruise company) can refuse a refund if you cancel. 

However, there are three potential exceptions to this. First is if the non-refundable term is unfair, unclear or was not communicated to you prior to the deposit being paid.

If so, both the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 – which deals with consumer contracts formed online – and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 state that the deposit must be paid back on the basis the term making it non-refundable is deemed unfair.

Another situation in which you may be granted a refund is if you cancel before an event occurs, and the trader suffers no real loss. In your situation, this might be because they were able to re-sell your room to someone else. 

Here, even if the deposit is described as non-refundable, the trader is only entitled to keep an amount that reflects their actual loss.

Finally, you may be due a refund if there has been any form of misrepresentation, for instance if the holiday you thought you were putting the deposit down for turned out to be not as described.

So, if ABTA finds your original cruise was below the standard reasonably expected, you could have a strong argument that you now know, from your previous experience, that the standard of the cruise will not be as described. This could entitle you to a refund of the £1,300 deposit.

My advice would be to factor this into any compensation claim you have in relation to the original cruise.