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The Tate Modern has suggested resident of flats overlooked by their terrace “put up net curtains” to avoid tourists peering into their homes.

Lawyers have been called in to settle a privacy dispute after pictures of people’s £4.5 million homes – taken from the public balcony on 10th floor of the gallery - appeared online.

Those who live in Neo Bankside, a four-storey glass-fronted block of flats, built shortly before the Tate’s new Switch House, complained a few days after the extension opened in June, when visitors began ogling the exposed flats and taking photographs.

Shocked resident then spotted snaps of the insides of their flats on the internet alongside comparisons to the Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window and remarks that the building was "good for exhibitionists".

But, Sir Nicholas Serota, who announced recently his plan to step down as head of the Tate galleries, said that he could see "no grounds" for a legal complaint from residents.

One resident of the block, in which three-bedroom flats are on offer for £4.5 million, appeared to have responded by making an effigy of Sir Nicholas in cardboard in his underwear and propping it up by the window.

Tate has put up signs asking people to "respect our neighbours' privacy" but has declined to take further measures.

Sir Nicholas said that resident’s “privacy would be enhanced if they decided they might put up a bling or a net curtain”.

Speaking at the publication of his last annual review before stepping down next year, he added: "I need to repeat that clearly people purchasing those flats were in no doubt that Tate Modern was going to build its new Switch House building, and the character and uses of that building were widely known and therefore people purchased, really, with their eyes wide open."

Liberal Democrat councillor Adele Morris branded the comments as “outrageous”.

She said: “Saying that they should just get net curtains like everyone else ... shows a complete disregard for the lives of the human beings who live in those flats."

It was suggested that one-way film could be applied to the windows that would allow residents to look out without being seen, but this was rejected by the Neo Bankside architects.