How do you tell if your neighbours will be noisy?
You can ask the vendor – but there are sometimes reasons why they might not tell you what you want to know. If they’re hard of hearing they might not notice that teenagers next door have the music on all the time. You can ask via a solicitor if there’s a problem with noise from the neighbours and as long as they get a written response to that you should know. If they lie then you might have a case against them.
The surest way is by your own observation.
Walk past a few times. Not in a stalkerish sort of way but discovering the neighbourhood sort of way. A hot sunny weekend is when you’re likely to see if the neighours are out on the fronts being noisy.
View the house when the neighbours are home. Canny sellers might only let you view when they neighbours are out. But a weekday evening should get you an idea of what noise you can hear from next door.
What noise should you expect to hear?
In an ideal world none, but the world isn’t perfect. If you can hear the neighbours chatting (Or shouting and screaming) or hear their microwave ping then the house needs some soundproofing to save the sanity of the residents.
Of course if you’re a huge noisy family then you won’t care what the neighbours are like!