carpet and noisy floors

michele – the first issue to resolve is a possible breach of a generic Strata By-Law that states:

“An Owner of a Lot must ensure that all floor space within the Lot is covered or otherwise treated to an extent sufficient to prevent the transmission from the floor space of noise likely to disturb the peaceful enjoyment of the Owner or occupier of another Lot.”

The second issue is that as the floor structure of one Lot is the ceiling of the one below, that area isn’t the sole property of any individual Lot Owner and is instead the Common Property of the Owners Corporation (O/C) as a collective of all Lot Owners.

So if by your use of the term “replaced” you mean taking-up the floorboards and installing a different material, then in the absence of “special” By-Law that’s been Registered on the Title of your specific Strata Plan and which sets-out how such an activity by Owners may be undertaken, then any activity that involves a physical change to the structure of the floor cannot be undertaken without a whole lot of rigmarole that culminates with General Meeting of the O/C voting upon whether or not those works may be consented, and under what conditions.

There are some navigable ways forward, but in order to narrow those down a little, can you advise if both you and your upstairs neighbour are Owners?

michele – it’s as well that you took the initiative to search for Special By-Laws (SBL) because that was going to be my next point of advice once you confirmed residency status, and if the SBL of relevance that you found has been properly Registered (on the Strata Title), then that tells me that noise transmission from all Lots except those on the ground floor must have been historically problematic, and that both you and your neighbour are legally required to abide by the provisions of that SBL.

The only way around that SBL would be to as you suggest arrange for a new one with different provisions or to amend the one that’s existing, but as both of those options would involve the drafting of a new or amended SBL, and a General Meeting of your Owners Corporation where ≥75% of those Owners in attendance (both personally and by proxy) would need to vote in favour of the proposal in accordance with the unit entitlement of their Lots (i.e. a “poll vote”) in order for it to pass, and with all of that being entirely at the expense of you and your upstairs neighbour, quite frankly I wouldn’t bother; hence my use if the term “rigmarole”.

Right now, and albeit inadvertently, your upstairs neighbour is in breach of the “model” By-Law # 14 that’s provided in Schedule 1 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (1996) that I quoted in my last post, and whilst you could pursue a formal resolution to that by requesting that the Executive Committee of your Plan meets to approve issuing her with a “Notice to Comply” (with a By-Law), if you wish to remain neighbourly why not try an informal approach in the first instance?

Decent underlay seems to me the most neighbourly and effective way forward, as believe me timber flooring, and particularly that of the “floating” variety would not only be contrary to the existing SBL, but would almost certainly make matters worse – have a look HERE for some commentary on timber flooring arising from many posts on this Forum and HERE for some general advice on matters Strata.