Wooden floors. Have they finally beaten the cartpet?

Residential leases commonly require lessees to close carpet the floors of their flats. Lessees almost equally commonly don't do it. The result can be a long and intractable dispute between lessee, landlord and other occupiers of the building. Things become really bloody where lessees have acquired the freehold of their building – an increasingly common scenario. Landlords and management companies need to adopt a clear strategy to prevent such situations blowing up.

Why carpets? Quite simply for sound proofing. Sound doesn't just travel down to the flat below, but also sideways to the flat next door. This tends not to be a problem in modern purpose built blocks. These will usually have solid concrete floors – often sound proofing enough. It is a significant problem however in many older blocks or converted houses particularly those with wooden floors.

Most leases which stipulate close carpeting are 20 or 30 years old, possibly more. Then, carpets were the most effective soundproofing readily and cheaply available. And most lessees would have wanted carpeting anyway for comfort, aesthetics, and probably insulation. Imposing carpets as a requirement was unlikely to meet with resistance.

Wooden floors have grown in popularity since then and particularly over the last 10 or 15 years. In response to demand most purpose built flats are designed with hard floors in mind and are even built with such floors as standard. This is good news for the fashion conscious and for the increasing fraternity of foreign buyers few of whom understand (or are happy to tolerate) what might appear to be a quaint English carpet obsession.

But it is not of much help for older buildings. Fortunately sound proofing technologies have also developed. Special sound deadening underlays are now available for use in buildings of more traditional construction. Laid between the original floor and the new hard floor they can reduce or even eliminate the extra noise resulting from hard floors.

And what if the lease stipulates carpet only? Lease drafting has not always kept up with fashions in interior design and there are still leases of more modern buildings with the same restrictions on flooring included, probably without much thought as to whether they were still necessary or indeed appropriate.

In such a case a lessee who installs a wooden floor - even using new technologies so that disturbance is no worse than with a carpet - breaches the terms of his lease. He may get away with it, but if the other lessees react badly, the landlord may have a problem.

The answer must surely be to consider the purpose behind the provision and agree a policy for getting round it. Such a policy might be:-

Undertake a sound test before any work commences. This sets the benchmark.
Carry out any work under the close supervision of the landlord's surveyors and in accordance with pre-determined specifications incorporating building regulation requirements for sound insulation.
Undertake a further sound test once the work is complete.
If the result is significantly higher than the benchmark or building regulations have not been complied with, the lessee undertakes remedial work as necessary.
If remedial work is not undertaken or the flat still fails the sound test then the lessee agrees to re-install carpets.

A lessee proposing to undertake works would first sign a legally binding commitment to comply with the policy. And typically to meet the landlord's costs of monitoring the works, conducting the sound tests and his legal fees. Normally such an agreement would take the form of a licence granted by deed.

If all the lessees agree to such a policy it is difficult to see what objection they could raise to a technical breach of the lease.

Landlords who have not already done so should seriously consider establishing this sort of policy. Domestic harmony means more than a beaten carpet.

Robert Barham, Managing Partner
Residential Estate Property Practice
email r.barham@pglaw.co.uk
tel 020 7591 3386