A high-flying couple who won a millionaires’ war over their neighbour’s noisy wooden floor have failed in a second court battle.
Businessman Sergey Grazhdankin, 44, and his wife, Maria, claimed their lives in a gated art deco development in West Kensington, London, became ‘torture’ after new neighbours moved into the £1.1million flat apartment above them in 2018.
Mr Grazhdankin, who runs an insurance services company, sued his neighbours, City banker Medhi Guissi and his wife Meriem El Harouchi, after they ripped up the carpets and installed new wooden flooring, leading to ‘unbearable’ noise.
The Grazhdankins claimed their lives were made a ‘torture’ by the everyday noises of the young family on the uncarpeted floor upstairs – including kids playing and crying, creaking joists, footsteps and noisy conversations.
The bitter neighbour row first reached court in 2023, when a judge ruled in favour of the Grazhdankins, ordering that their noisy neighbours fork out £16,087 in compensation for the time up to when carpets were relaid.
Despite his victory in November that year, Mr Grazhdankin returned to the High Court, where he argued that the carpets had not solved the problem of his neighbours’ ‘creaking’ floors and that they needed to be taken up and fixed.
Appealing against the earlier finding that the ongoing creaking is no more than can be expected in the flats, he claimed that his neighbours should be forced to do work to fix the noisy floors.
However, after a hearing at the High Court, Mr Justice Adam Johnson rejected his bid, saying that the lower judge had considered the creaking floors properly and found the noise was ‘not outside the norm.’
Sergey Grazhdankin and his wife Maria (both pictured) claimed they’d been ‘tortured’ by the noise of Mehdi Guissi’s family and their creaking floorboards above. A judge ruled in their favour in November 2023
Mr Grazhdankin, who runs an insurance services company, sued his neighbours, City banker Medhi Guissi (pictured) and his wife Meriem El Harouchi. The legal battle continues to rumble on
Mr Grazhdankin returned to the High Court, claiming that the new carpets have made no difference. Pictured: The wooden flooring in the West Kensington flat
During the initial trial in 2023, Central London County Court heard Mr and Mrs Grazhdankin moved into their fourth floor flat in North End House, Fitzjames Lane, in 2011, before their neighbours bought the apartment upstairs for £1.1m in 2018.
Previously, the Grazhdankins had an elderly lady living above them and told the court that they very rarely heard noise from upstairs, other than the occasional banging of a door.
But after Mr Guissi and his wife bought the property, they began a major refurbishment of the flat, tearing out walls, changing the layout of the rooms and replacing the floor.
In place of the carpeted floor which the former owner had, they installed a wooden floor, with a floating acoustic barrier in an attempt to alleviate any noise.
However, the Grazhdankins complained that the acoustic floor was fitted incorrectly, with screws being driven through it and into the joists, against the specific instructions of the manufacturers.
The ‘incorrect’ installation of the floor resulted in creaking and the constant passage of impact and airborne sound from above, they said.
In a statement written at the time and put before the court, Mr Grazhdankin said that, after a year living in Germany, he and his family had moved back into the flat in August 2020.
Once back in the apartment, he and his marketing manager wife had found the noise ‘unbearable,’ he said.
Mr Grazhdankin and his wife, who is a marketing manager, moved into their fourth floor flat in North End House (pictured) in 2011. Their neighbours bought the apartment upstairs for £1.1million in 2018
‘During the week, we are woken up daily between 5.30am and 7.30am by the noise from above and we can hear the floor making creaking sounds, walking sounds and the sound of moving furniture right above our main bedroom,’ he said.
‘On weekends we are woken up between 7am and 8am by walking, banging, jumping sounds, children running and voices.
‘During the day, throughout the whole week, there is a lot of noise of similar nature, being creaking floor, walking, dropping things on the floor, moving objects on the floor, children crying, shouting and voices.
‘This is experienced especially between 2pm and 10pm.
‘Overall, living in our apartment feels like living in a shared apartment with another family. It is impossible to have our peace and live in our own rhythm.’
‘Living with this every day since we moved is torture,’ he added from the witness box.
His wife said the only time they were free from the noise above was after Mr Guissi and his family go to bed, which can be after 10pm at night, making the Grazhdankins dependent on their neighbours’ daily schedule.
‘We live with our neighbours in the most direct way of speech as we are always disturbed by the sounds of their daily life in their apartment,’ she said in a statement.
‘We are automatically able to tell not only if they’re at home but also who exactly of the family is at home, which room they’re in and sometimes what kind of activity they are engaged in.
‘It feels depressing because I do not have a feeling of privacy, peace and quiet in my own home.’
After Mr Guissi and his wife bought the property, they began a major refurbishment of the flat (pictured), tearing out walls, changing the layout of the rooms and replacing the floor
Mr Guissi and Mrs El Harouchi eventually had carpets fitted in most areas of their flat, but the Grazhdankins pressed ahead with the ‘nuisance’ claim against them.
Ruling, Judge Tracey Bloom handed victory to the Grazhdankins, finding that the noise they suffered after their neighbours tore up the old carpets was ‘unbearable’ and kept them awake at night.
The Grazhdankins had been ‘clearly distressed’ by the noise, which was the result of sound restricting flooring being incorrectly installed, meaning it was as much use as a ‘piece of plywood’ laid across the floorboards, the judge said.
She awarded them £16,087 in compensation, but crucially agreed with one expert witness who said that any ongoing creaking noise after the carpets were laid was not so bad that it constituted a ‘nuisance’ in law.
At the High Court, their barrister Mark Lorell fought on, complaining that despite being ‘very critical’ of the upstairs floor, Judge Bloom had wrongly ‘allowed it to stay in place.’
He said there could be ‘no comparison’ between what the Grazhdankins were experiencing and what could be considered ‘common creaking in a house.’
‘The judge evaluated the evidence in a way no reasonable judge could have done,’ he argued.
‘She made her decision based on the fact she believes this creaking appears all over the property – and there is no evidence of that whatsoever.’
But now rejecting the Grazhdankins’ application to appeal, Mr Justice Adam Johnson said he considered there was ‘no realistic prospect’ of them winning.
‘The appeal here is really against the judge’s evaluation of the evidence on the question whether, once carpeting had been installed, ongoing creaking amounted to a continuing nuisance,’ he said.
‘The evidence before the judge included the results of testing by [two experts] Mr Rogers and Mr Anderson, the upshot of which was that both could detect some level of creaking.
‘The difference between them was that Mr Rogers thought this a significant issue and Mr Anderson thought it not.
‘It seems to me the view that Mr Anderson was expressing was that the level of noise he had detected was not outside the norm and was consistent with what he would expect in a property of this type.
‘It is clear that the judge preferred the evidence of Mr Anderson on this and other topics. The core question is whether she was entitled to take that view.
‘I am far from satisfied that the judge can be criticised…I decline to grant permission to appeal.’
The decision means the Grazhdankins’ neighbours can keep their floors in place.