Help! Wooden floor in flat above - leasehold in a Housing Association-owned block

pingcat

This may not be an appropriate topic on MSE therefore please forgive me if that's the case but I am desperate!

I purchased a leasehold flat at the end of last year. The freehold is owned by a housing association, and the flat above me has a housing association tenant in it.

My flat - and the other leasehold flats in the building - have a clause in the lease stating floors in all rooms / passageways of the flats must be carpeted to avoid transmission of noise. Unfortunately, upon moving into the flat, I very quickly discovered the flat above me has a wooden floor. The consequence of this is constant noise disturbance from upstairs; I hear everything; from their phone vibrating at 6am as an alarm clock, to the tv, the vacuum cleaner, dog barking, the phone rining, doors closing, footsteps, etc. I accept that there will always been some disturbance from neighbours - this is part of flat life; however I cannot live in this situation - my sleep is disturbed almost every single night as a result.

After moving in, I almost immediately contacted the Housing Association who also act as the management company for the block, and after 6+ months of formal complaints, recording disturbances, etc. they have finally come back to me and said that there is no equivalent clause to that in my lease re. carpeting, and therefore they can't do anything about my problem.

It has to be noted that my upstairs neighbour is not being unreasonable in her behaviour, the noise is caused from "normal" living activities which are simply magnified (significantly) by the wooden floor. Therefore I have no reason to complain on this front.

I had made an assumption (lesson learned!) that tenancy agreements would be equivalent to leases regarding items such as this which affect neighbours.

I am desperately concerned that having made this complaint over several months, I will now be unable to sell the flat when the time comes because it would be declared as an unresolved problem :S

Is there anything I can do in this situation? I have tried amicably asking the neighbour to consider getting some rugs; however with no improvement in my situation. I don't wish to spend a small fortune on a solicitor if I'm fighting a pointless battle I have no hope of winning!

Thanks for any advice / suggestions...

LeoC

Hi

I also had problems with noise in the past, so I can imagine your pain.

One question: is this a period conversion (an old house with timber floors) or a modern purpose built block with concrete floors?

If you have concrete floors, then I would say that having wooden floors or not is not going to make such a big difference. You probably have flanking noise (noise being transmitted by the walls).

Having wooden floors make impact noise worse (such as footfall) but it doesn't make much of a difference to airborne noises such as talking, tv, or the alarm clock/phone ring you mentioned. (carpets would help a bit, but not much).

In any case, you could consider putting sound insulation under your ceiling, although this can be quite expensive (a couple of thousand pounds for an average-sized room). Perhaps you can do this only in the bedroom?

I also wouldn't worry too much about problems when selling your flat. I sold two flats already and they both had some unresolved issues and the buyer simply ignored or didn't notice them.

ps: another point is that even if the lease said that you need to have carpets, I don't believe that any court would evict a leaseholder for breaching this clause alone.

john_white

Regarding the 'complaint', well as I see it you have to give details of any disputes. Thing with this is it has been resolved, not to your prefered outcome but, you know it can't be changed.

If you consider a boundary dispute, both sides want the land, it is only closed when one side gives in, ideally through evidence one way or the other but ultimately one side 'wins', the dispute is closed.

In your case you have complained about noise, the landlord has checked the lease/agreement and confirmed no action can be taken. Dispute closed. It would only drag on if there was a clause and they refused to act on it. Not your ideal outcome but you could claim you are happy with the way your complaint was resolved.

pingcat

Thanks for your help.

It's a purpose built block, but I know the noise problem is caused by the hard floor above as I have good-quality carpets throughout mine and my neighbour below says she never hears anything. I also hear nothing from neighbours either side of me despite their young children.

I just don't understand why the freeholder (housing association) has put a clause in my lease stating I must have carpet to avoid transmission of noise, but has not put one in the tenancy agreements of those that are rented? I assumed that because it was in my lease (and the other leasehold flats) that it would be the same for all flats in the building. grrr!

rentergirl

The flat above probably hasn't used the felt under the flooring which muffles some of the harder sounds. Maybe they could do that? Some councils even have signs in shop selling laminate saying that the felt is essential.

jonpurnell

I have a similar problem,

I have bought a ground floor flat, but the upstairs neighbors are council tenants and have laminate flooring which is very noisy.

There new tenants agreement says:


" If your property is a flat or a maisonette within a block you must keep all your floors, including hallways and stairs, covered with carpet and a good-quality
underlay, or with a suitable floor covering that reduces noise. This does not apply
to kitchens and bathrooms where we provided the floor coverings."

Which would hopefully mean that they will have to remove the laminate and put down carpet and acoustic underlay:o.

However, I have offered to pay for carpet for them. I figure that the amount of money that I would loose by moving because of the noise would make this generous offer worth my while.

The upstairs neighbors are undecided whether or not they should take up my offer- but hopefully the new tenancy agreement will mean they will have to.

Apparently if it is domestic noise then you do not have to declare it when you sell

thelem

Have you spoken to the upstairs neighbour about the problem? It might be worth offering to pay for a new carpet - or maybe rugs in strategic places would be enough?

Fire_Fox

Keep a noise diary and ask Environmental Health to mediate. EH have more powers than freeholders in such matters.

breadlinebetty

It's a shame you don't have share of the freehold, you could then get a solicitor to put a clause in stipulating ALL flats above ground level must be carpeted with good quality underlay.

However, there's nothing stopping you contacting the freeholders and asking them to put that in the lease, especially if you offer to pay for amendment. The freeholders would probably agree to that - it's no skin off their noses.

If the noise is unbearable, it may be an idea to offer to pay for soundproffing between their floorboards and your ceiling, and maybe even underlay. It may cost a bit, but in the long run it will save you thousands - and you'll live ahappy life without hearing them upstairs.

I did read not so long ago that they are thinking of bringing out a new law whereby all first floor dwellings will have to soundproof their floors by way of proper soundproofing or carpeting, or they'll be hit with a massive fine. Not sure when that will come into effect, but it may be worth your while writing to your MP.

Fire_Fox

breadlinebetty wrote: »

It's a shame you don't have share of the freehold, you could then get a solicitor to put a clause in stipulating ALL flats above ground level must be carpeted with good quality underlay.

However, there's nothing stopping you contacting the freeholders and asking them to put that in the lease, especially if you offer to pay for amendment. The freeholders would probably agree to that - it's no skin off their noses.

Errr, no they cannot. Freeholders cannot unilaterally add covenants, the long lease is a legally binding contract on both sides! The only way you could enforce a variation is to apply to the LVT, even then there are no grounds for interfering with the way your neighbour lives or how they choose to decorate their home.

"An individual party to a lease can make an application to a Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) to vary the lease under the provisions of Part 4 Section 35 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. However the grounds for a compulsory lease variation are limited. The grounds under which you can make an application are:

The lease has inadequate provisions relating to the repair/maintenance of the flat or building.
The insurance provisions of the lease are inadequate.
The lease has inadequate provision for the repair/maintenance of any installation required for a reasonable standard of accommodation of any flat within the building.
The lease has inadequate provision for providing any service required for a reasonable standard of accommodation of any flat within the building.
The lease has inadequate or no provision for the recovery of money from a party to the lease spent on maintaining the building by another party to the lease.
The computation of a service charge detailed in the lease is inadequate. An example would be where a service charge proportion expressed as a percentage in all of the leases in respect of a building does not add up to 100%."
http://www.lease-advice.org/information/faqs/faq.asp?item=135

breadlinebetty

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Errr, no they cannot. Freeholders cannot unilaterally add covenants, the long lease is a legally binding contract on both sides! The only way you could enforce a variation is to apply to the LVT, even then there are no grounds for interfering with the way your neighbour lives or how they choose to decorate their home.

"An individual party to a lease can make an application to a Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) to vary the lease under the provisions of Part 4 Section 35 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. However the grounds for a compulsory lease variation are limited. The grounds under which you can make an application are:

The lease has inadequate provisions relating to the repair/maintenance of the flat or building.
The insurance provisions of the lease are inadequate.
The lease has inadequate provision for the repair/maintenance of any installation required for a reasonable standard of accommodation of any flat within the building.
The lease has inadequate provision for providing any service required for a reasonable standard of accommodation of any flat within the building.
The lease has inadequate or no provision for the recovery of money from a party to the lease spent on maintaining the building by another party to the lease.
The computation of a service charge detailed in the lease is inadequate. An example would be where a service charge proportion expressed as a percentage in all of the leases in respect of a building does not add up to 100%."
http://www.lease-advice.org/information/faqs/faq.asp?item=135

Err, I was told different by a convayencing solicitor :cool:

Whatever, the OP may do well to contact these people

http://www.lease-advice.org/information/faqs/faq.asp?item=133

and they'll find out for themselves.

Variations can be made on leases, so it's worht them asking. You never know.:)