Court Decision No. 6606/2018: Domestic Disturbances and Nuisance. Violation of Condominium Rules and Disruption in a Co-owner’s Apartment. In 2018, our office successfully secured the issuance of Decision No. 6606/2018 from the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki (Property Disputes Procedure), which ruled in favor of our plaintiff clients and drew attention from legal and journalistic sources.
The plaintiffs’ lawsuit, filed in 2017 against their neighboring defendants before the aforementioned court, sought to compel the latter to cease creating excessive and intolerable noise in their apartment by supervising their children and abstaining from violating the condominium’s co-ownership rules regarding quiet and security.
The issued decision confirmed that the defendants had breached the condominium’s regulations and generated loud noises, both by their minor children and themselves, far exceeding the acceptable noise level typically associated with cohabitation. This disturbance affected the tranquility of other residents, and the court ordered the defendants to (a) cease excessive noise in their apartment, and (b) refrain from further violations of the relevant condominium rules. Additionally, the court imposed a personal detention threat of one month and a monetary penalty of three hundred euros (€300) for each violation of the court’s order.
In 2019, the decision became final with the issuance of Decision No. 2469/2019 by the Single-Member Court of Appeals of Thessaloniki, which upheld the initial ruling and allowed our clients to pursue mandatory compliance by the defendants. They could now also demand (via a separate legal process) the enforcement of personal detention and monetary compensation for the nuisance caused by the noise generated by the defendants and their children.
Specifically, the noise would occur on weekdays after 3:00 p.m. (when the children returned from school) until late at night, and all day on weekends. It involved stomping, dragging furniture, dropping items on the floor, and constant shouting—nuisances the court attributed to a lack of control and adequate supervision by the parents over their minor children.
Such disturbances are a common issue for many apartment owners and tenants, as domestic noise and yelling have become a constant problem due to modern lifestyles and high population density in urban centers. The pandemic and mandatory lockdown measures significantly increased instances of loud disturbances and shouting.
Due to Police Regulation 3/1996 (Government Gazette B 15/12.1.1996), especially Article 1, which regulates quiet hours, there is often a misconception that noise outside these hours is unrestricted. This belief can make it seem impossible to enforce compliance through police or judicial means, leaving the recipient of such disturbances feeling defenseless.
Indeed, observing quiet hours is a legal obligation, and violations constitute unlawful acts with criminal implications. However, maintaining household peace and quiet is not limited to these hours but is protected under Civil Code provisions governing the rights and obligations arising from co-ownership and cohabitation.
The current legal framework provides a wide range of protections to the recipient of such nuisance, and the legal basis for such protection may vary depending on the specifics of each case. Different legal approaches apply, for instance, when cohabitation within a building is regulated by a condominium administration rule (as in the case of the above decision), which, with terms accepted by all co-owners, governs the permissible use of each apartment to prevent disturbances to others’ domestic peace. In contrast, when the disturbance is so severe that it affects the recipient’s physical or mental health, additional legal grounds might arise for moral damages.
Our office has successfully handled cases involving clients in Thessaloniki, Athens, and other cities in Greece, taking into account each case’s unique circumstances and selecting the appropriate legal basis to ensure that our clients’ claims are considered well-founded by the courts and that suitable mandatory measures are imposed to restore household peace. Excerpts from Decision No. 6606/2018:
- “(…) It follows that each co-owner’s right to fully use their private property must be exercised in a way that does not harm the rights of other co-owners, stemming from their exclusive ownership of a floor or floor apartment, or their necessary co-ownership of common areas (Articles 1118 of the Civil Code and Article 2 of Law 3741/1929). When harm to other co-owners occurs, it is a matter of fact judged on a case-by-case basis, considering the specific conditions of the condominium, the needs of individual properties, the ability to use common areas, and the purpose these serve, always with regard to the principles of good faith and accepted moral standards (Supreme Court Decision 1369/2005 TNP NOMOS)(…).
- (…) Nevertheless, it was proven that the defendant and his family violated the condominium’s regulations by causing daily noise that made the plaintiff’s family’s life unbearable. In particular, it was shown that the defendants’ minor children caused such noise as to generate deafening sounds that disturbed the peace in the plaintiffs’ apartment and other units in the building (…).
- (…) As a result, the tranquility in the plaintiff’s apartment is disrupted, causing constant worry, annoyance, and irritation, preventing them from using their home as a place of peace and rest (…).
- (…) It is also worth noting that given the presence of four minor children in an apartment of about 80 square meters, the parents should be especially careful and prudent to avoid creating issues for other residents in the building. Instead, it was shown that the disturbances were due to a lack of control and adequate supervision over the minors, who acted unchecked, disturbing the peace in the plaintiff’s apartment. The defendants’ objection under Article 1003 of the Civil Code was dismissed as substantively unfounded (…).”
