Impact sound insulation: Federal Court of Justice prioritizes housing trends over noise protection

Normally, the updated guidelines of a regulation are the ones that are currently valid. This is not the case with sound insulation. Here, the decibel limits that were in effect at the time the house was built are decisive.

On February 27, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe dismissed the lawsuit of a retired couple living in a 30-story apartment building in Travemünde (on the Baltic Sea) who were disturbed by footfall noise. The new owners of the apartment above theirs had ripped out the old carpet and replaced it with parquet flooring. As a result, the footsteps above their heads were suddenly much more audible, since high heels on a wooden floor make significantly more noise than on a sound-absorbing carpet. The plaintiffs therefore demanded that the parquet flooring be replaced with a less noise-transmitting covering.

Parquet flooring? Absolutely!

It is now common knowledge and scientifically recognized that noise can cause illness. Nevertheless, from a legal perspective, the disturbance is deemed acceptable. The Karlsruhe judges argued that the noise level was still below the impact sound limit of 63 decibels that was in effect at the time of construction in the 1970s (for comparison: this corresponds roughly to the volume of group conversations in a company cafeteria).

Had the Maritim high-rise in Travemünde been a new building, the verdict would have been different. With a limit of 53 decibels, noise protection regulations are much stricter today. Therefore, the acceptable level of noise depends on the building's age. A different ruling would have saved the courts a great deal of work, as inadequate impact sound insulation is a frequent cause of disputes over neighborly noise.

Even the soil changes with time

Instead, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) referred in its ruling to changing living trends – the carpet in the high-rise building had only been laid because it was "chic" in the 1970s, found presiding BGH judge Christina Stresemann. The defendant's lawyer had also pointed out that there were already 53 apartments with tiles, parquet or laminate flooring in the Maritim high-rise.

Stay grounded?

The ruling makes it clear that a homeowner cannot insist that only carpet be laid in the apartment above them for soundproofing reasons. This also applies to rental apartments: The relevant standard is not the soundproofing at the time the apartment was rented, but rather the DIN standard that was in effect when the building was constructed. Therefore, increased noise pollution resulting from a change in the neighboring apartment's flooring during the tenancy does not obligate the landlord to remedy the situation.

Sources: www.baurechtsurteile.de ; www.spiegel.de; www.zeit.de; www.faz.de, Mietrechtslexikon (Rental Law Lexicon)