In real estate law, if a tenant is accused in a neighborhood dispute, the courts can convict his owner.
“You don’t choose your parents, you don’t choose your family,” and you don’t choose your neighbors either. The hazards of community life mean that it sometimes happens that you live next to a noisy neighbor. A door slamming every morning, unwanted shouts during the day or loud music in the evening… If these noise pollution becomes as intense as it is recurring, it is possible to sanction the author.
Nocturnal noise or neighborhood disturbances: the reasons for complaints are numerous. But is the author considered the one and only responsible? Well not always! If the person who inconveniences their neighbors is a tenant of the accommodation in which they live, their landlord can also be blamed. Clearly, a lessor can be held responsible for nuisances generated by their tenant.
Such a case had to be judged by the Court of Cassation a few years ago. In this dispute, Ahmed, tenant of housing belonging to the Public Housing Office (OPH), took his social landlord to court. He complained of neighborhood disturbances caused by another occupant of the building, also a tenant of the OPH. Ahmed demanded that the lessor take measures to put an end to this noise pollution and requested compensation for the damage suffered. The noises came from a home above his, occupied by a mother and her son.
Initially, the court ruled in favor of Ahmed and ordered the OPH to compensate him for breach of its contractual obligations as a lessor. Dissatisfied, the social landlord appealed the judgment. Before the Montpellier Court of Appeal, on October 13, 2015, the magistrates this time ruled against the tenant. The court considered that the lessor had fulfilled his duty by sending three registered letters to the noisy neighbors, on February 3, 2006, April 3, 2009 and May 19, 2009. The court of appeal also noted that Ahmed’s complaints remained episodic and that no other neighbor had come forward to corroborate his accusations.
Considering himself wronged, Ahmed appealed to the Court of Cassation. The tenant criticized the lessor for not having fulfilled his obligation to guarantee the lessee the peaceful enjoyment of the rented property. According to him, simply sending three registered letters to noisy neighbors did not bring about a return to calm. Consequently, the OPH had to go further and initiate a procedure to terminate the rental lease of the tenants in question.
In its decision of March 8, 2018, the Court of Cassation effectively overturned the judgment of the Montpellier Court of Appeal. The highest court in the country recalled the fundamental principle set out in article 1719 of the Civil Code: “The lessor is obliged to allow the lessee to enjoy the leased thing peacefully for the entire duration of the lease”. The magistrates considered, in this respect, that the lessor is responsible towards the lessee for disturbances of enjoyment caused by other tenants and is only exempt from this responsibility in the event of force majeure.
The case was sent back to the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal to be retried in accordance with the principles recalled by the Court of Cassation. The OPH, for its part, was ordered to pay 3,000 euros to reimburse the legal costs incurred during this procedure.
