Noise nuisance from owner-occupied homes: hidden defect?

Questioner

Together with my boyfriend we bought our first house. The terraced house was for sale through the housing association. We were super happy that everything had worked out and enthusiastically started the renovation. We completely renovated the kitchen and bathroom. The floors and walls have been renovated, we are now still working on the garden. All in all, a lot of our savings are in the house. We have been living in the house for half a year now, and are really sad about it. It is so incredibly noisy. We thought that our one neighbour was very noisy, 5 children of a different culture, they are not being raised at all. We had a lot of noise nuisance from them. Until my other neighbours left and new ones came to take their place, our previous neighbour was alone, so you could hardly hear him. It is terrible with the new neighbours, they both have a loud voice. It is so that we can literally hear every conversation. That I hear some banging of doors or something is logical, but that I can literally hear their conversations, I find terribly intense. We have decided to renovate again and to demolish our gas fireplace and to make a false wall with insulation. This is because we hear them all day long and they apparently hear us too. I am afraid to have a conversation in my house because nothing is private. This makes me so intensely unhappy. I have all kinds of unforeseen costs. 1 wall is insulated and we are almost 1000 euros further. And then we haven't even talked about upstairs. Our neighbors have wild adventures in bed that we witness almost every day. In my opinion this is a hidden defect. I spoke to the previous buyer later and she also indicated that she had a lot of trouble with the neighbors. The housing association is aware of this. When I asked about it during the viewing they said that it is different from new construction but not very bad. What can we do about this? Can you please give us advice? I am getting really unhappy here and it just feels like this is just not allowed and can't happen. Through the false wall we hear a lot less, we can still hear them but fortunately we can no longer hear the conversations through our TV. But there is still sound coming through the window frames.. :(

Lawyer

Dear, In your case, a number of elements seem to be at play, namely (1) the seller should have reported; (2) the home does meet your expectations; and (3) there is a case of unlawful obscenity. Given the limitation in the number of characters (and the lack of further facts and circumstances), I 'only' note that - with regard to liability of the seller - there must be a case of 'structural and serious nuisance according to objective standards'. In addition, every neighbour relationship has its own dynamics. This dynamic means that what is experienced as a nuisance by one person does not bother the other. Regardless of the question of whether the seller had to report, steps can (possibly) be taken towards the neighbours. There must then be a case of unlawful nuisance. Whether this is the case depends on the nature, severity and duration of the nuisance and the damage caused by it. The fact that you only moved into the home 'later' does play a role in this.

Lawyer

In addition to the correct response from my colleague lawyer, I would like to inform you as follows. To the extent that the noise nuisance could be considered a hidden defect of the house, it applies that a hidden defect must be brought to the attention of the seller within a reasonable period. This reasonable period is often seen as a maximum of two months after the discovery of the defect or after the moment that defect could have been noticed. If the noise nuisance can be classified as a hidden defect and you are still within the deadline, you could hold the seller liable for it.