Real Estate & Property Law

Flooring Disaster Waiting to Happen in HOA

Noisy floors ruin the lives of lots of people, whether they live upstairs or downstairs. Here is a recent email (I get them all the time-same subject, different description):

"We just received a letter from our HOA. They are proposing changing CC&Rs to now allow hard surface flooring in upper units. They say it is too hard to enforce compliance ... we purchased 13 years ago, lower unit."

Hard surface flooring issues are one of the hardest to solve. I have written in the past from the standpoint of the lower unit having to live with thoughtless upstairs neighbors who thumb their noses when the neighbors downstairs complain. I have written about very thoughtful upstairs neighbors whose neighbors downstairs expect quiet similar to a residential neighborhood, single family home, and complain all the time to the board, when the board cannot do anything, or doesn't think the downstairs neighbor is being reasonable. I have written about the young families who buy into a beautiful unit with hard surface floors and then find that the downstairs neighbors find the children noise (natural running, jumping, screaming, and general excitement) too much, who start pounding on the ceiling and calling the police. I have written about those who remove carpeting because of allergies, and ruin the lives of the downstairs neighbors.

Yes, I have written about lots of problems. As a practitioner in this area of the law, I think opening up the upper floors to hard surface flooring without first exploring what the sound deadening options are, or doing it anyway when they have explored and find there are no super duper fixes, is possibly creating an untenable situation.

And in some of these situations, it is the Board members who live upstairs and want to increase the value of their units with hardwood or laminate floors, and so they ignore the affect on the downstairs owners, and this is not good.

Hard surface flooring and noise issues create unresolvable differences in many cases. However, even when the documents allow for them, that does not eliminate the possibility of pursuing a valid nuisance claim.

Excess or extraordinary noise is a nuisance. Small claims court might be present a nuisance monetary award if you can convince the judge you are being reasonable and the other party is not. But small claims court judges probably won't issue court orders to make owners do something differently - mediation might be the place to accomplish a decent workable compromise. Keep in mind that taking no action when there is unreasonable noise above or below, or next door for that matter, can bring on a new issue, namely the necessity of a nuisance disclosure upon sale or rental of the unit.

Full post as published by California Condo & HOA Law on September 30, 2010 (boomark / email).