Our neighbors organize parties to watch football matches. Can we complain about the noise?

My wife and I are dreading the Euro 2024 football tournament because our neighbors will be watching most of the matches in their conservatory – a part of the house that seems to amplify the noise.

It will mean weeks of misery for us.

Often they have people watching games at night and it’s just not soundproof at all, with the sound of TV speakers and the shouting and cheering going right through us.

For this reason, we really hope England don’t make it to the final.

And the noise doesn’t stop at full time: they keep making noise until the early hours.

We’re on good terms with them, but when we’ve brought this up in the past they say, ‘Sorry, we’ll limit the noise’ – but that never happens.

What do we do now? Can we make an anonymous noise complaint to the authorities who will take them seriously, but not destroy relations with neighboring countries?

Jane Denton replies: With the Euro 2024 football tournament just starting and the Wimbledon tennis championships and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games just around the corner, this summer has a whole host of delights in store for sports fans.

However, watching sports activities in a cafe, bar or restaurant can be a costly affair for consumers.

Figures published by the Office for National Statistics in May show that the average price of a pint in the UK rose 4.6 per cent to £4.75 in the year to April. Many gamblers, especially in locations like London, pay significantly more.

Many pubs and bars require punters to pay a deposit and make a time-limited reservation for a table during the Euro 2024 football tournament.

With all this in mind, many people, including your neighbors, organize their own football viewing parties at home.

Such events invariably often cause tensions between neighbors, especially if the party is not just a one-off and regularly extends into the early morning hours.

Let’s speak to two experts, the head of an acoustics consultancy and a lawyer, to determine how best to solve your noise problems and whether a complaint to the council is the best course of action.

Ed Clarke, director of Clarke Saunders Acoustics in Winchester, says: We live on a small island, which sometimes feels like it is getting smaller – the population density is increasing, and perhaps our expectations of peace and quiet are increasing, while on the other side of the party wall the concern for the neighbors decreases.

I encounter many situations that have more to do with social interaction than acoustic wave theory, and that require more diplomacy and expectation management than complex manipulation of decibels.

Controlling neighbor noise is essentially a matter of reasonableness, both in practice and in the legal application of nuisance legislation.

The hope is that when reasonable expectations are matched with reasonable behavior, even though this may involve compromise, a reasonable outcome is achieved and we can all participate.

Of course, this can fail if the sound insulation is incredibly poor, so that even restrained citizens, who live very normally, disturb their tolerant neighbors.

Allowing for a reasonable level of noisy neighbor activity, fireworks in early November and New Year’s Day are generally accepted as exceptions to the daily status quo, plus the occasional birthday party.

A raw, high-minded life of this nature would be unreasonable, and even practicable, if it were repeated in daily practice.

But spread across the calendar year, this can mean an appropriate balance of give and take.

Euro 2024 will last a month, with England playing at least three group stage matches and up to four knockout matches, many of which will start relatively late.

My professional opinion is that reasonable neighbors might think twice about having “viewing parties” for all seven games, especially if they know the soundproofing between them and the neighbors is not good.

But if there’s somewhere else in your house where the sound of the conservatory TV doesn’t penetrate as much, it may be reasonable to take refuge there every now and then, especially if you’ve discussed with the neighbors what evenings they have planned. to have friends.

Assuming we rule out the possibility of joining in the fun and watching football together, the key should be more communication rather than less.

Discuss this now and before anyone has had a drink.

Involving the municipality, lawyers and acoustics experts would be the next step, but would be quite an escalation and not the best use of everyone’s time.

Tyler Clayton, solicitor at Fosters Solicitors in Norwich, says: Initially, try to have a direct, yet friendly conversation with your neighbors.

Be specific about the impact the noise has on your life and suggest practical solutions such as lowering the volume, closing windows, or watching the games in another room.

Follow up your conversation with a polite written request.

This crystallizes your complaint and serves as a reminder.

That letter should be dated and state the desire to maintain a good relationship, and perhaps suggest a compromise.

If these measures are unsuccessful, you can theoretically submit an anonymous noise complaint to your municipality or competent authority, in the hope that it will intervene.

The council may issue a noise abatement notice if sufficient evidence has been gathered to demonstrate that the noise is a legal nuisance.

However, keep in mind that your neighbors will likely find out that you are the complainant.

As a last resort, you may consider bringing a claim against the neighbors in private nuisance proceedings.

To achieve this, you as the owner must have an interest in the land affected by the noise pollution.

Private nuisance is usually caused by someone doing something on their own land to which they are lawfully entitled, but which becomes a nuisance if the consequences extend to adjacent land.

The interference with the enjoyment of the land must be substantial and unreasonable.

It can arise from a single incident or from a longer-term situation. It can be caused by passivity or negligence, but also by positive activity.

A broad unifying principle in this area of ​​law is the need for fairness between neighbors.

The court would make an assessment, in which the factors would in any case be weighed within the overarching principle of reasonableness.

To assist the court, you should routinely record decibel levels at as many points as possible and, if necessary, record the results in a diary.

The court is often most interested in quantifiable, ideally irrefutable data.

In this case, an obvious problem you face is that the Euro is an isolated, rare tournament.

If a sincere approach from one neighbor to another improves things, the judicial approach may seem disproportionate and also risky if a judge, especially a football fan, thinks you overreacted.

Of course, it will always be a matter of degree, so if the noise is truly and objectively unbearable, and perhaps not limited to the euro, then a judicial solution may seem your only option.

Remedies include damages to compensate for the damage, or injunctive relief to require the neighbors to stop the ongoing nuisance.

Make no mistake: legal proceedings are incredibly expensive, so consider that side of the matter before taking action.