We’ve all seen the TV shows of nightmare neighbours and just how disruptive they can be. Whether they’re over growing trees too tall, playing music too loud, or making a mess, neighbourly disputes can be bitter and long lasting.

But now Halifax Home Insurance has revealed the full extent of the problem. Results from a recent survey suggest as many as 360,000 people have had to move home over the last year alone as a direct result of bad neighbours.

2,000 people were polled for the survey, which revealed that 1 in 10 of all moves were due to neighbourly problems. It also revealed the most common factors that resulted in the moves, showing that aggressive behaviour, excessive noise levels, the state of a property or garden next door, neighbours who had allowed their properties to fall into a state of disrepair and theft were all common complaints that led to moves.

All of this paints a pretty grim picture of the situation with nightmare neighbours across the country. What’s more, bad neighbours don’t just make life unbearable, they can also affect the value of the property. Halifax suggests that as much as £30,000 can be knocked off the property value when it comes to selling due to bad neighbours.

The research also revealed that four in every five people who are selling their home as a result of bad neighbours do not make this clear to the buyer – a practice that could lead to the buyer claiming damages in the future.

The popularity boom in social networking has seen sites such as Facebook and Twitter become household names. But despite their enormous popularity, the sites have come with a number of problems, most of which relate to privacy issues. Now Confused.com is warning users of these sites that they could see home insurance premiums rise in the future as a result.

The news follows the furore created recently when a new website was set up that posted information about homes that were empty at particular times. PleaseRobMe.com hit the headlines after it claimed that it had posted the details on the site to highlight the dangers that revealing such information on social networking sites can lead to.

Some social networking sites use location-based technology that allow users to state where they are at any given time. The concern is that this information could clearly be of use to thieves who could then target homes when they know that no one is in.

It is this sensitive data that could see premiums rise to cover losses caused as a result. The head of home insurance at Confused.com, Darren Black, said that “we could see hikes of up to 10%” for people using social networking sites in the future. He also warned that “criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their information gathering”, and are using services such as Google Earth to plan burglaries.

Confused.com has provided some advice to users of social networking sites, suggesting that they should turn off location-based services unless absolutely necessary, and should refrain from posting their address or phone number details. The full advice can be found here.