Upper or Lower flat?

MARTYM8`

Upper - absolutely.

If you have ever lived in a block of flats/conversion where some residents have kids stomping about all day you will know why - better to be above than below! It can literally sound like you have elephants living upstairs - particularly if they have cheap laminate flooring - and there is nothing that can be done about it as kids will be kids.

You can choose your home - but you cannot choose your neighbours!

lucyw88

From my experience I'd definitely say upper floor. I may be biased as I live in a top floor flat in medium apartment building (36 apartments in all which is the smaller side of average in the area). My husband is a director of the building and the management company have had lots of complaints (and even police getting involved) with disputes between flats because of the noise coming from upstairs. It turns out often it is just kids being kids or even the resident above just walking a bit too loudly. Also we have had a few flats have pipework break and the poor flat below is the one to get water running down their walls.
We're lucky because we have a lift so getting up here is easy, we don't get loft space though. We are currently selling and we have had a 2nd viewing (didn't turn into a sale sadly) but the other apartments on lower floors didn't get that as the tree line blocked the light for many of them.
We never have problems with noise and this has meant a lot to us as we have busy careers and both need lots of sleep:j

Sandra_C_2

For me, its upper flat. My top floor place (heat included) is comfortably warm in the winter. Maybe it's the heat rising. In the summer, with windows on three sides, I rarely need AC thanks to the wind up here.

johnmcga

On balance, I'd say upstairs, too. However, it's not as simple as upstairs good, downstairs bad - it depends on a whole range of things.

I lived on one ground floor flat and had never heard the upstairs neighbours: they were fairly quiet and the soundproofing was excellent. However, I also lived in the basement of an old Victorian conversion where every sound from upstairs carried through the ceiling.

If you're not looking at a purpose-built block of flats, see if you can find out how the conversion was done and how good the soundproofing is. (Not sure how you go about doing this in practice - I've only ever rented flats!)

Also, see if you can somehow find out what sort of floor the upstairs neighbours have. If it's floorboards or laminate flooring, be very cautious!