Laminate flooring in a council flat

riverboat2001

The people living in the council flat above my Mum have laminate flooring. It was there when they moved in.

The tenents are very loud and wake here up at all hours of the night.

(there living room is above her bedroom)

BitterAndTwisted

A lot of Local Authority's tenancy agreements forbid the laying of laminate flooring for the very reason you have mentioned. I know my own does so perhaps your mother should double-check her agreement as well.

riverboat2001

Mum live on ground floor in my flat that i have a mortgage on

RAS

So

Do the Council own the flat above?

riverboat2001

yes they do
its a house converted into three flats, one on top of each other.

RAS

Well contact the Council and ask if laminate is permitted in this first floor flat?

breadlinebetty

A new law is coming into force some time this year forbidding landlords/councils/tenants from having laminate flooring (or just floorboards) in any flats above ground floor apartments. I'll try to find the link to the announcement made by government on 14th January.

It will apply to house conversions and blocks of flats.

The new ruling will mean all laminate flooring will have to be replaced with underlay and carpet, and such underlay will have to be of a certain standard so as to absorb noise levels. I believe there will be an option to have a specific underfloor soundproofing, but as that is incredibly expensive, it will be cheaper to just lay carpet according to the new guidelines.

Any landlord/tenant not complying with the new ruling will be summonsed and taken to court, fined, and forced to replace the laminate flooring, so it's in their own interests to do something about it sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, the new law probably won't be enforced until later this year.

For more information check https://www.communities.gov.uk

The MP dealing with this widespread issue is:

Andrew Stunell MP
Parliamentaray Under Secretary of State
Department for Communities and Local Government

Sound insulation is covered by the Building Regulations and the new ruling will be in the next iteration of Building Regs .

There has been thousands of people complaining to their local councils about this problem, and I do know Andrew Stunell and the Council are still taking details of any complaints. So you'd be wise to write to both of them in the meantime.

If the noise is unbearable and you can't wait until the new law comes into force, you can ask your local council to send you forms (I'll find the name of them for you and post it later) which you can fill out and send to your neighbour outlining the problem. They're similar to a court summons (civil action) for a type of breach of the peace.Under the Human Rights Act everyone is entitled to live in peace in their own homes, and this is one way to make your neighbours sit up and do something about the flooring.Whilst laminate is not illegal at this moment (until the new law comes in) disruption of your peace IS. If you threaten them with court action, they'll probably replace the laminate sharpish, as any disputes with neighbours could effectively devalue their property when they want to sell.

riverboat2001

Wow, thanks very much for the reply, I've forwarded it to Mum.
So even though the laminate has been down for a while, it will have to be replaced.
I'm sure they will plead poverty to avoid doing it!

kaych

breadlinebetty wrote: »

A new law is coming into force some time this year forbidding landlords/councils/tenants from having laminate flooring (or just floorboards) in any flats above ground floor apartments. I'll try to find the link to the announcement made by government on 14th January.

It will apply to house conversions and blocks of flats.

The new ruling will mean all laminate flooring will have to be replaced with underlay and carpet, and such underlay will have to be of a certain standard so as to absorb noise levels. I believe there will be an option to have a specific underfloor soundproofing, but as that is incredibly expensive, it will be cheaper to just lay carpet according to the new guidelines.

Any landlord/tenant not complying with the new ruling will be summonsed and taken to court, fined, and forced to replace the laminate flooring, so it's in their own interests to do something about it sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, the new law probably won't be enforced until later this year.

For more information check www.communities.gov.uk

The MP dealing with this widespread issue is:

Andrew Stunell MP
Parliamentaray Under Secretary of State
Department for Communities and Local Government

Sound insulation is covered by the Building Regulations and the new ruling will be in the next iteration of Building Regs .

There has been thousands of people complaining to their local councils about this problem, and I do know Andrew Stunell and the Council are still taking details of any complaints. So you'd be wise to write to both of them in the meantime.

If the noise is unbearable and you can't wait until the new law comes into force, you can ask your local council to send you forms (I'll find the name of them for you and post it later) which you can fill out and send to your neighbour outlining the problem. They're similar to a court summons (civil action) for a type of breach of the peace.Under the Human Rights Act everyone is entitled to live in peace in their own homes, and this is one way to make your neighbours sit up and do something about the flooring.Whilst laminate is not illegal at this moment (until the new law comes in) disruption of your peace IS. If you threaten them with court action, they'll probably replace the laminate sharpish, as any disputes with neighbours could effectively devalue their property when they want to sell.

I find this hard to believe, this is going to affect so many households... or is it just landlords and council flats, even if just for landlords..etc, it's going to affect so many people and the cost will not be cheap...
I can't seem to find any literature on this, can you please post a link? Thanks.

dfgmavis

I can't find anything on the communities.gov site and when I called them up they didn't seem to know anything aout this either. Google appears hopeless as well...

Got any direct links breadlinebetty? Or maybe it was an error?

breadlinebetty wrote: »

A new law is coming into force some time this year forbidding landlords/councils/tenants from having laminate flooring (or just floorboards) in any flats above ground floor apartments. I'll try to find the link to the announcement made by government on 14th January.
...

dfgmavis

I contacted communities.gov.uk and Breadline Betty is unfortunately mistaken. The very nice email they sent to me says:

In England and Wales the Building Regulations apply to building work, typically the erection, extension or material alteration of a building. Part E of the Regulations covers sound insulation and Approved Document E (AD E) provides guidance on ways of achieving compliance with these requirements. These provisions were last amended in 2004.

In buildings built to current standards, the floor covering would not be relied upon to achieve the required value of sound insulation but in older properties this can present a problem. The replacement of floor coverings is not regarded as a material alteration as the Regulations currently stand so there is no route of complaint through the Building Control Department.

If a neighbour is producing an unreasonable amount of noise nuisance then you may be able to make a complaint through the Local Authority's environmental health department.

In some cases lease or tenancy agreements for flats may require residents to use or avoid certain floor coverings, and you may wish to check if this is the situation.

There is no new law, legislation as yet coming in forbidding laminate flooring in flats.

Thank you



Sustainable Buildings Division

Hackney Homes who are our building lease managers do not have any kind of clause to stop laminate flooring going down. However I'm going to petition for a change to this - every time I speak to another home owner in the block they complain about the noise from the council flats that have got laminate in them. But no one wants to complain to Environmental Health because they all want to be able to sell their flats at some point. Its insane.