Family who replaced carpets in £2.6m Kensington flat with wooden floors causing ‘constant’ noise for downstairs neighbour as children ran around must pay her £100,000 after losing appeal.
- Sarah and Ahmed El Kerrami were sued by banker neighbour Sarvenaz Fouladi
- Complainant said dish washing and children playing made ‘intolerable’ noise
- Couple appealed after being told to fork out more than £100,000 in damages
- But a High Court judge has now upheld the original decision and they must pay
Source: Mail Online: SEBASTIAN MURPHY-BATES FOR MAILONLINE
A couple ordered to pay a neighbour over £100,000 damages due to the noise of their young family on wooden floors must hand over the money after losing an appeal.
Sarah and Ahmed El Kerrami were sued by their banker neighbour, Sarvenaz Fouladi, 39, over what she called the ‘intolerable’ noise of the family-of-five.
She said the sound of everyday activity above her £2.6 million apartment – from children playing to dishes being washed – was keeping her up at night.
The ‘constant’ ordeal only began after the installation of a new uncarpeted wooden floor in the El Kerramis’ upstairs flat in 2010, she said.
Judge Nicholas Parfitt awarded her £107,397.37 damages and ordered work be done to solve the noise problem at county court in May.
Since then, she and her mum, Fereshent Salamat, had been bombarded with noise from a boiler, fridge, taps and a fireplace above, she said.
The El Kerrami family used the flat ‘like a playground, kids running and dropping things for seven hours non-stop’, she told the judge.
Awarding her damages, Judge Parfitt said it was the noise of simple ‘day-to-day living’ which had caused the problems in the mansion block.
Although he said Miss Fouladi and her mum’s evidence was exaggerated, the judge said noise was ‘…sufficiently loud to be invasive and disturbing…’
The couple appealed, but after a four-day High Court hearing – which ran up tens of thousands of pounds more in legal costs – saw the bill upheld.
High Court judge, Mr Justice Morgan, said the problem was that the new floor did not prevent transmission of noise between the luxury flats.
The old floor had been taken up and replaced with a new one ‘which did not provide good insulation against sound transmission’, he said.
At Central London County Court, Miss Fouladi claimed that there had been no noise at all before work was done in 2010 prior to the El Kerramis moving in.
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