What Are My Rights in a Neighbour Dispute in Scotland?

Who this guide is for

People in Scotland who have a problem with a neighbour: noise or another nuisance, a high hedge, branches or roots coming over from next door, where the boundary is or a fence, CCTV or doorbell cameras, Japanese knotweed, or antisocial behaviour. It covers the steps to take first, what the council and the police can do, and when court is the last resort.

What this guide does not cover

• England, Wales or Northern Ireland: see the England and Wales guide or the Northern Ireland guide.
• A problem with your own landlord, such as repairs or a notice to leave your home: see our tenant rights guide.
• Who owns or must repair a fence or wall, and building work next door: ask Citizens Advice Scotland or a solicitor.
• Planning permission, including how high a fence or wall can be and extensions: ask your council's planning department.
• Right to light, rights of way, claiming against a neighbour over knotweed or other invasive plants, and claiming money for damage caused by a neighbour's tree or hedge: ask Citizens Advice Scotland or a solicitor.
• Court orders to stop harassment: ask a solicitor.
• Appeals against a council's high hedge decision: the decision explains any right of appeal. This guide does not cover them.
• The amount of any fine, fee or compensation. This guide gives no amounts.

What the rules depend on

1. Where do you live? Scotland: this guide. England, Wales or Northern Ireland: see that nation's guide.
2. What is the problem? Noise or another nuisance, a high hedge, trees or roots, the boundary or a fence, CCTV or doorbell cameras, Japanese knotweed, or antisocial behaviour. Each has its own route below. Building work next door is not covered.
3. Has your neighbour threatened you, been violent or harassed you? Yes: do not approach them; contact the police or your council. No: start with the informal steps.
4. Does your neighbour rent their home? Yes: you can also talk to their landlord, which could be the council, a housing association or a private landlord.
5. What have you already tried? A high hedge application must include evidence of the steps you took to resolve it first.

First steps: talk, write, landlord, mediation

• If you feel comfortable, speak to your neighbour. Take a note of the time and date you spoke to them, in case you need it as evidence later.
• If you have not been able to speak to them, write a letter. Describe the problem and the action you would like them to take. Keep a copy of any letter you send. You can use our free noise letter to a neighbour.
• If your neighbour is a council or housing association tenant, contact a housing officer or the housing department. They could contact your neighbour, take steps to end the tenancy, or apply to court for an antisocial behaviour order.
• A residents' or tenants' association may support you. If more people complain, the conflict is less personal.
• Mediation: you can find a trained mediator through Scottish Mediation. SACRO also provides community mediation services. You might have to pay for mediation, depending on the provider; tell them if you are on a low income.
• The council can help to solve disputes between neighbours, even if the neighbours do not live in council housing.

Noise and other nuisances: the council

• Contact your council's environmental health department about noise, rubbish, smells, leaks or insects coming from a neighbour's home. An officer will usually contact your neighbour and try to reach a solution.
• If the council decides there is a statutory nuisance, it can serve an abatement notice on your neighbour requiring them to stop or limit the problem. If the notice is not complied with, the person responsible can be prosecuted and fined in the sheriff court.
• Antisocial noise: councils that have adopted Part 5 of the Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004 work with Police Scotland to investigate noise, tell the person to reduce it and, in some cases, give a fixed penalty notice or seize the noise-making equipment.
• The police also have powers to deal with excessive noise. They might fine people who have not stopped making excessive noise after being asked to, or take away the equipment. Call 101 if it is not an emergency.
• Building work noise: each council has recommended times for building work. Contact your council to find out when it is allowed.
• Keep a diary of the dates, times and type of noise. The council may ask for it, or use equipment to record the noise.

High hedges

• The High Hedges (Scotland) Act 2013 came into force on 1 April 2014. It lets the owner or occupier of a home apply to the council for a high hedge notice.
• A high hedge is formed wholly or mainly by a row of 2 or more trees or shrubs, rises to more than 2 metres above ground level, and forms a barrier to light. Gaps that significantly reduce its effect as a barrier above 2 metres mean it does not count.
• All types of hedge are covered, whether evergreen, semi-evergreen or deciduous.
• Single trees are not covered, well-spaced lines of trees are not generally a hedge, and the roots are not taken into account.
• You must take all reasonable steps to resolve the problem before you apply, for example talking or writing to the hedge owner or mediation, and send evidence of those steps with your application.
• The council may charge a fee and sets the amount, which can be nil. The fee cannot be more than the council's reasonable costs of deciding the application. The council must publish when it will normally refund it.

Trees and roots from next door

• The owner of a tree or hedge has no general duty to cut or prune it, however much a neighbour objects.
• You may cut back branches and roots that come onto your property, but only up to the boundary. It is courteous to ask the owner first.
• If the tree is protected by a tree preservation order or is in a conservation area, permission is needed before any work. Check with the council first.
• The branches you remove, and any fruit on them, belong to the tree's owner and should be offered back. If the owner does not want them, you must dispose of them responsibly.
• Do not leave the tree unstable or dangerous: you could be liable for damage it causes later.
• If your neighbour will not deal with a tree that is affecting your property, ask a solicitor.

Boundaries and fences

• The Land Register map for a property shows its registered extent, usually with a red line. Older deeds in the Register of Sasines may describe the boundaries in words, and many have no plan.
• If you and your neighbour disagree about where the boundary is, or about a fence or wall on it, Registers of Scotland recommends getting legal advice. Citizens Advice Scotland or a solicitor can help.
• How high a fence or wall can be is a planning question: ask your council's planning department.
• The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 is England and Wales law and does not apply in Scotland.

CCTV and doorbell cameras

• If a neighbour's CCTV or doorbell camera records beyond their own property boundary, data protection law applies and there are rules they must follow.
• You can ask the owner for a copy of footage you are in. In most cases they should reply within one calendar month. You can also ask them to delete footage you are in, and object to them recording you.
• You can complain to the Information Commission (the data protection regulator, which replaced the Information Commissioner's Office on 30 September 2026). But in most cases the Information Commission cannot make the owner delete recordings, move or remove the camera, or get footage for you.
• If the camera is part of wider behaviour that makes you feel harassed, you can report it to the police, or to your neighbour's landlord if they rent. The Information Commission says the police are unlikely to treat CCTV on its own as harassment.

Japanese knotweed

• It is an offence to plant a plant in the wild, or otherwise cause it to grow there, at a place outside its native range. The Act does not say that plants just spreading from your land are an offence in themselves. It is a defence to show that you took all reasonable steps and used all due diligence to avoid committing the offence.
• If you have knotweed, make sure it does not spread off your land, and check you have the right permissions before any control work.
• If it spreads onto a neighbour's land and causes a nuisance, and you cannot agree what to do, SEPA says to get advice from a solicitor.

Antisocial behaviour, harassment and the police

• Do not approach your neighbour if they have acted with threats, violence or harassment. Contact your council or the police instead: 999 in an emergency, 101 if it is not an emergency.
• Record the dates and times of the behaviour and the effect it has on you, for example if you cannot sleep because of noise.
• If your neighbour rents from the council or a housing association, the landlord can take court action, including applying for an antisocial behaviour order. Contact your council to find out more (some councils have an antisocial behaviour team).

Repairs to shared parts of a tenement

This is for flat owners. In Scotland a tenement is any building with two or more flats divided from each other horizontally, not only a traditional tenement with a common stair.

Your title deeds usually say who must look after shared parts, such as the roof, outside walls and foundations, and how the costs are shared. If the title deeds say nothing, are unclear or contradict your neighbour's, the Tenement Management Scheme in the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 fills the gap. If the title deeds are clear, you must follow them.

Under the Tenement Management Scheme, owners make decisions about maintenance by voting, with one vote for each flat. The costs are shared equally, except that a part only some flats use is paid for by the owners of those flats. Also, if the biggest flat is more than one and a half times the floor area of the smallest, the costs are split so the owner of the larger flat pays more.

Challenging a decision: if the owners made a decision under the management scheme that applies to your tenement, and you did not vote for it (or you became an owner afterwards), you can ask the sheriff by summary application to cancel it. The sheriff can do this if the decision is not in the best interests of all the owners as a group, or is unfairly prejudicial to one or more owners. You must apply within 28 days of the meeting (if you went to it) or, if you did not, within 28 days of being told about the decision. Unless the work is urgent, the owners cannot carry out the decision until the 28 days have passed with no application or, if one is made, until it has been dealt with.

Under the Tenement Management Scheme there is a second route for maintenance decisions. An owner (or owners) who did not vote for a decision to carry out or authorise maintenance of shared parts, and who would have to pay at least 75% of the cost, can cancel the decision by giving notice to each of the other owners. The notice must be given within 21 days of the meeting (if they went to it) or of being told about the decision.

Any owner can also ask the sheriff for an order about any matter concerning how the scheme or the Act works (section 6). A party can appeal the sheriff's decision to the Court of Session on a point of law within 14 days.

Getting an owner to pay their share: this guide does not cover it. Ask Citizens Advice Scotland or a solicitor.

Going to court

• Court is the last resort. For a claim for money, see the simple procedure guide for Scotland. For anything else, ask Citizens Advice Scotland or a solicitor.

Deadlines

• This guide gives no deadlines for Scotland. Ask Citizens Advice Scotland or a solicitor about any time limit, including for a court claim.

Money figures

• High hedge application fees are set by each council.

Traps

• Scotland's high hedge law covers deciduous hedges too. The England and Wales law covers only mostly evergreen or semi-evergreen hedges.
• Scotland's antisocial noise powers come from the Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004, where the council has adopted them. The Noise Act 1996 does not apply in Scotland.
• The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 and the ASB Case Review (Community Trigger) are England and Wales rules. They do not apply in Scotland.
• Cutting a neighbour's tree beyond the boundary, or cutting a protected tree without permission, can get you into trouble even though the branches overhang your land.