Have a look at this collection of rulings HERE but if you are looking for something absolute and definitive, don’t hold your breath … this is strata … in NSW..
Your selfish upstairs neighbour can wave all the acoustic reports they like but there is only one factor that is truly significant … is the noise transmitted to your apartment excessive and disturbing?
That can be harder to prove than whether or not the upstairs neighbour installed the floor to whatever standard or not, but if you can prove it – and it can be done – it gives them nowhere to go but to re-install the flooring properly or re-lay carpet.
You might get a result at the CTTT – you may not … it’s all a bit of a lucky dip there.
Personally, I’d like to see an Owners Corp get together and drag one of these greedy, ignorant nincompoops who think they have the right to enhance the value of their apartment to the detriment of their neighbours’ to the Supreme Court where damages can be claimed.
I’d also like to see flooring sales people having to re-lay the flooring or the carpet at their own expense if they can’t prove that they have warned an apartment owner adequately about the dangers of improperly insulated timber floor. Maybe flooring installers should be required to sign a copy of a building’s by-laws to prove that they and their customers have both read them.
As it is, some flooring sales people are worse than used car salesmen – and I’m talking about the kind of used cars that run on snake oil. When I installed timber flooring (and it cost three times as much as the cheapest option to make it fully compliant) I had flooring salesmen tell me not to worry about the “boring old farts” on ECs as there was nothing they could do anyway.
(sigh)
As far as timings go this is what the CTTT website says: “You can expect the matter to be finalised within 3 months after lodging your application with the CTTT.”
What does ‘finalised’ mean? Is it when the adjudicator rules or when your appeal is heard? And there will be an appeal – rest assured. Adjudication purely on paper is such an unsatisfactory process that it’s likely to be scrapped in the near future. But for now all it means is that one party or the other – whoever loses – will feel that their side of the story hasn’t been heard properly so they will appeal to a hearing anyway.
So while you are waiting for the adjudication to drop from the heavens, gather as much evidence of noise as you can – including recordings, stat decs from friends and neighbours, and diary entries – to present at the hearing that you will inevitably have to attend.