Skip to main content
Fulltext search
FILTER RESULTS BY:
RECOMMENDED IN RENT
Moving to NYC after college? Here's how to find a rental apartment
RECOMMENDED IN BUY
How buying real estate in NYC is unlike anywhere else
RECOMMENDED IN SELL
A guide to using a no-fee renovation loan from a NYC real estate firm
RECOMMENDED IN IMPROVE
How to make your NYC renovation more pet-friendly
BEST REAL ESTATE WEBSITE!
National Association of Real Estate Editors
BEST REAL ESTATE WEBSITE! National Association of Real Estate Editors
Brick Underground
Social Links
follow:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Flipboard
  • search
Brick Underground
☰ Brick Underground
Brick Underground
Brick Underground
☰
Brick Underground
  • Buy
    • Buy
    • The Market
    • Investing
    • New Construction + Condos
    • Affordable Housing
    • Co-ops
    • Negotiating + Financing
    • How to Buy in NYC Guide
    Haley and JP move to Prospect Lefferts Gardens
    New Construction + Condos
    From Prospect Heights to Prospect Lefferts Garden: We wanted three bedrooms so we could each have a home office
    An image of the top of a brick New York City apartment building, including its parapet.
    Design + Architecture
    Parapet inspections: What NYC boards and building owners need to know about Local Law 126
    one-bedroom condo at 702 Hancock Street
    The Search
    7 reasons why ground-floor apartments are desirable—instead of dealbreakers
  • Rent
    • Rent
    • Affordable Housing
    • Roommates + Landlords
    • The Market
    • The Search
    • How to Rent in NYC Guide
    Midtown Manhattan seen from Roosevelt Island tramway
    The Market
    Manhattan median rent spiked 6 percent to $4,500 in April
    Tenant protest outside Rent Guidelines Board preliminary vote
    Affordable Housing
    Rent Guidelines Board intends to raise stabilized rents for a fourth time
    A beautiful pink flowering cherry tree next to an old brick residential building with a fire escape in Astoria Queens New York during spring
    The Search
    A wet, hot, broker fee-free summer? A major change to rental broker fees is supposed to start in June
  • Sell
    • Sell
    • Staging + Open Houses
    • Negotiations + Closings
    • Getting Ready
    • How to Sell in NYC Guide
    Madison avenue and East 67th Street, Manhattan, New York City
    Sell
    Median sales price for Manhattan co-ops and condos jumps to $1,165,000
    new condo building and older co-op buildings in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
    Sell
    Brooklyn median price nears $1 million but the spring market is a question mark
    View of NYC condo buildings from New Jersey
    Sell
    Private listings: What NYC sellers and buyers need to know about the off-market controversy
  • Live
    • Live
    • Neighbors
    • Kids + Pets
    • Neighborhood Intel
    • Products + Test-drives
    • Troubleshooting
    FlatRate moving brick underground
    Live
    How to troubleshoot your move in advance
    Sponsored By flatrate
    big apple moving NYC
    Troubleshooting
    How can I save money when hiring a moving company in NYC?
    Sponsored By Big Apple Moving
    Houses and apartment buildings in Queens, NYC
    Troubleshooting
    Mayor Adams is bringing the tax lien sale back. Here’s how to get your property off the list
  • Improve
    • Improve
    • Small Spaces
    • Small Projects + DIY
    • Renovations
    • Design + Architecture
    • Products + Services
    • How to Renovate in NYC Guide
    An image of the top of a brick New York City apartment building, including its parapet.
    Design + Architecture
    Parapet inspections: What NYC boards and building owners need to know about Local Law 126
    solar panels on a small house roof
    Design + Architecture
    Simple Yet Powerful Steps To Turn Your Apartment Eco-Friendly
    Sponsored By Ecoflow
    This is a photograph of a street in the Upper West Side in NYC viewed from the Summit in Central Park through bare tree branches.
    Renovation
    Fewer buyers, steeper rents, and costlier renovations: How tariffs could impact NYC real estate
  • Boards & Buildings
    • Boards & Buildings
    • Boards
    • Finance
    • Insurance
    • Legal
    • Property Management
    • Structure & Systems
    • Sustainability
    Burned and Boarded Up Windows
    When should your board hire a public adjuster?
    Manhattan GM
    What should we consider when renewing insurance for our building?
    Facade of NYC buildings
    How much is insurance on a NYC co-op or condo building?
  • Advertise
    • Advertise with us
    • Sponsored Content
    • Experts
    FlatRate moving brick underground
    Live
    How to troubleshoot your move in advance
    Sponsored By flatrate
    Apartment buildings at Grand and Crosby streets in Soho, Manhattan
    Affordable Housing
    Ask Altagracia: My mom is moving out of our rent-stabilized apartment. How do I take over the lease?
    Sponsored By Outerbridge Law P.C.
    big apple moving NYC
    Troubleshooting
    How can I save money when hiring a moving company in NYC?
    Sponsored By Big Apple Moving
  • Brick Report
  • About Us
  • About Us
Email Address
Fulltext search
FILTER RESULTS BY:
New Main menu
  • Buy
    • Buy
    • The Market
    • Investing
    • New Construction + Condos
    • Affordable Housing
    • Co-ops
    • Negotiating + Financing
    • How to Buy in NYC Guide
  • Rent
    • Rent
    • Affordable Housing
    • Roommates + Landlords
    • The Market
    • The Search
    • How to Rent in NYC Guide
  • Sell
    • Sell
    • Staging + Open Houses
    • Negotiations + Closings
    • Getting Ready
    • How to Sell in NYC Guide
  • Live
    • Live
    • Neighbors
    • Kids + Pets
    • Neighborhood Intel
    • Products + Test-drives
    • Troubleshooting
  • Improve
    • Improve
    • Small Spaces
    • Small Projects + DIY
    • Renovations
    • Design + Architecture
    • Products + Services
    • How to Renovate in NYC Guide
  • Boards & Buildings
    • Boards & Buildings
    • Boards
    • Finance
    • Insurance
    • Legal
    • Property Management
    • Structure & Systems
    • Sustainability
  • Advertise
    • Advertise with us
    • Sponsored Content
    • Experts
  • Brick Report
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Advertise
  • About Us
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER →
Social Links Footer
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Search
Ask a Co-op & Condo Lawyer [ SPONSORED ]

How to quiet a noisy neighbor in a co-op or condo

By Wagner, Berkow, and Brandt  | August 29, 2018 - 11:00AM
image

iStock

SHARE:
Share to Facebook
Share to Twitter
Print
More...

I own my apartment and my noisy neighbor is driving me nuts. What can I do to make this stop?

New York doesn't have to be the city that never sleeps. Noisy neighbors can come in lots of different forms—loud walkers and loud talkers, party animals and Jimi Hendrix wannabes—but there are a handful of practical solutions that are common to them all.

Assuming that you've had no luck talking to your neighbor, there are two main areas to explore, according to attorney Steve Wagner, a partner at the firm Wagner Berkow with decades of experience representing apartment owners and co-op and condo boards.

"One is what do you do through lawyers," he says. "The other is what do you do practically."

Practical measures and legal prep

A first step is to start tracking when the noise is happening. Keeping a calendar posted in your kitchen so you don't have to go digging it out every time your neighbor fires up her floor-to-ceiling guitar amp is one trick Wagner suggests to clients. Another thing that can help build your case is talking to other neighbors to see if they're affected. If the issue is your upstairs neighbor practicing a clog-dancing routine every Tuesday night like clockwork, odds are your next-door neighbors aren't going to care. But if it's booming bass from that same neighbor's side gig as a techno producer, you may have some allies, and whichever route you take next, there's strength in numbers.

Before suing your building and/or your neighbor, you're also going to need some proof of the problem beyond your jotted notes. That means hiring an expert to measure the sound levels over time. And, Wagner says, "Getting an expert is going to be expensive."

"The test can cost thousands of dollars, and the testimony of an expert can cost thousands of dollars," he says. "That's not to mention the legal fess, which are also thousands of dollars."

So before going to court, you can try to convince your co-op or condo board to take action for you, on the basis that the neighbor is violating the proprietary lease or the house rules. You're going to need to go to the board armed with evidence, so that still means hiring sound consultants.

You might also benefit from doing a visual inspection of your apartment. Wagner explains that often there are holes between apartments around pipes or risers that allow sound to travel through. Stopping the sound could be as simple as covering these with soundproofing material. 

Even if the area is properly soundproofed for the most part, if there's a hole, "It makes the rest of the soundproofing ineffective," Wagner says.

Also, buildings often require that residents cover 80 percent of their apartments' floors with carpeting or rugs. The absence of floor coverings upstairs may also be what ails you, in which case the board could step in. To figure any of this out, you and/or your lawyer are going to need to consult the building's rules. If you or your neighbor have renovated recently, you may also want to look at the alteration agreement.

Wagner recalls the case of a woman who, in the course of renovating her apartment, removed all the soundproofing material in her floor, making life hell for the downstairs neighbor. The terms of her agreement ultimately meant she had to pay both the building and her neighbor, for whom the noise was so bad the apartment became uninhabitable.

Wagner says to keep in mind that, when it comes to neighbor disputes, both sides tend to dig in, and given the expense involved, you should consider just paying for soundproofing yourself.

"But most people don't want to lower their own ceiling for soundproofing," he says. "And very often you won't find someone willing to pay to improve their neighbor's apartment even if it's to their own benefit."

Making the noisemaker pay

Then you have lawsuits. There is some dispute in the courts over whether the building must have a specific noise rule beyond the city noise code for one to be able to sue the noisemaker for creating a nuisance. To address this, Wagner suggests that co-op or condo boards create specific house rules governing noise levels, using the noise code for reference.

"In more than one instance we've provided for that in the rules, so that if the person being disturbed tests and if after a trial it's proven that the noise was unreasonable that the person making the noise would have to reimburse the person who's being disturbed for the cost of testing," Wagner says.

Here again, you'll want to know what the rules are before settling on a legal strategy.

Taking it to court

Another route that's becoming more common for neighbor nuisance cases in New York apartment buildings, according to Wagner, is suing not only the neighbor and the building for violating the noise code, but also demanding that the board take action to address the problem and suing them when they fail to.

"What that does is it allows the collection of legal fee by the person being disturbed," he says.

Finally, in a co-op, you are entitled to a habitable living situation, so you could start withholding your common charges in protest.

"But that's not very effective," Wagner says. "Because you don't want your rent reduced. You want the noise to stop."


New York City real estate attorney Bonnie Reid Berkow is a founding partner of Wagner, Berkow & Brandt with more than 30 years of experience litigating in state and federal courts in New York state, including cases involving breach of contract, fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, in addition to real estate disputes and commercial actions. To submit a question for this column, click here. To ask about a legal consultation, send an email or call (646) 780-7272.

You Might Also Like

image
Live Does the new law requiring NYC apartment buildings to have smoking policies mean smoking will be banned?
image
Troubleshooting Rent Coach: Can I get out of my lease because of noise problems?
Apartment noise
Live How to solve the 5 most common co-op neighbor disputes

 

Brick Underground articles occasionally include the expertise of, or information about, advertising partners when relevant to the story. We will never promote an advertiser's product without making the relationship clear to our readers.

topics:

Ask a Co-op & Condo Lawyer Neighbors noise
SHARE
TWEET
BRICK’S PICKS
Historic brick facades of NYC apartment buildings
Getting overcharged by a landlord? Here’s how the Tenant Protection Unit helps rent-stabilized tenants
Apartment buildings in Soho
New Rent Guidelines Board report justifies a rent freeze, tenant advocates claim
Brooklyn apartment buildings
Understanding net effective rent: Here's how to calculate your real monthly rent
image
How much should you renovate your NYC apartment or house before selling?
Council Member Shahana Hanif hold press conference before the City Council vote on Arrow Linen spot rezoning.
City Council signs off on 10-story towers for Arrow Linen site
couple standing close, only jeans-clad legs showing
Can my boyfriend claim ownership of my condo if we break up?
Follow Brick on Instagram
@brickunderground | #brickunderground
Brick UndergroundBRICK UNDERGROUNDREAL LIFE. REAL ESTATE. REAL NEW YORK.
Social Links Footer
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Search
Main menu footer
  • Buy
    • The Market
    • Investing
    • New Construction + Condos
    • Affordable Housing
    • Co-ops
    • Negotiating + Financing
    • How to Buy in NYC Guide
  • Rent
    • Affordable Housing
    • Roommates + Landlords
    • The Market
    • The Search
    • How to Rent in NYC Guide
  • Sell
    • Staging + Open Houses
    • Negotiations + Closings
    • Getting Ready
    • How to Sell in NYC Guide
  • Live
    • Neighbors
    • Kids + Pets
    • Neighborhood Intel
    • Products + Test-drives
    • Troubleshooting
  • Improve
    • Small Spaces
    • Small Projects + DIY
    • Renovations
    • Design + Architecture
    • Products + Services
    • How to Renovate in NYC Guide

Get more news you can actually use...

The subscription service is currently unavailable. Please check again later.

Delivered to your inbox weekly - for free.

*By signing up you agree to receive occasional emails on behalf of our sponsors

Footer Menu
  • About Us
  • Advertise

Copyright 2009-2024 by BND Ventures Inc | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Ad Choices | Login