Report noise from an alarm

Find out who to report a car or house alarm to, and how to prevent your alarm causing an issue.

Who to report an alarm to

If you think there’s been a break-in or attempted theft, phone Sussex Police.

If you think there’s a fire, contact East Sussex Fire & Rescue.

If an alarm has been going off for at least 20 minutes every hour, use our online Environmental Health report form to report this during the week.

You can also phone 01273 294 266 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.

Find out how to report other noise issues.

What we need to know

When reporting a building alarm you should tell us the exact address.

If you’re reporting a car alarm, you should give us the details of the car including:

  • location
  • make
  • model
  • colour
  • registration number of the vehicle

This information means we can check our records for any contact details to help us sort the issue as quickly as possible.

When we can show an alarm is causing a problem, we’ll take all possible steps to contact the person responsible for it. Where that’s not possible, we may disable or silence the alarm.

We’ll get back any charges for silencing alarms and officer time from the person responsible for the alarm.

What we can do about a building alarm

House alarms should de-activate after 20 minutes.

If Brighton & Hove City Council receives a complaint about a continuous sounding alarm we'll attempt to locate the owner of the property or a key holder and ask them to stop the alarm from sounding.

If this is not possible, we can apply to a court for a warrant to enter the premises and disable the alarm. This can take some time to arrange. The owner of the premises will be responsible for the costs incurred to enter the premises and disable the alarm.

There are no out-of-hours services to deal with alarms overnight or at weekends, they will be dealt with the following working day.  

What we can do about a car alarm

Car alarms should de-activate after 5 minutes.

If we receive a complaint about a car alarm, we'll attempt to contact the owner to arrange for deactivation. However, if this is not possible the officer will have to serve a legal notice on the car and arrange for the alarm to be deactivated.

If the alarm cannot be silenced the car may be removed to a secure location where the noise will not cause a disturbance. The vehicle owner will be charged for the costs of the disconnection/removal.

What you can do to prevent your alarm from causing an issue

Make sure your alarm has a cut-out device, which triggers after no more than 20 minutes. After this, the alarm should not sound again until it’s manually reset.

Register your house alarm with us. Once you've registered, we'll have the contact details of at least 2 keyholders who will be able to turn the alarm off.

Make sure the registered keeper details for an alarmed vehicle are up to date. Include a phone number that you can be contacted on at all times.