One of the most common neighborhood conflicts when living in a building with different apartments is noise, especially when it occurs during rest hours. In order to solve this type of problem, the most common thing is to resort to the Horizontal Property Law and the Noise Law. However, It gets complicated when the sound is not caused by another neighbor, but by a leisure venue.like a disco.
According to Raúl Gómez, lawyer and collaborator on the “Onda Cero” program ‘It’s Not Hours’, noise is quite common in big cities. However, there are cases in which “noise ceases to be simply a nuisance and can become a violation of a person’s fundamental rights,” as well as affect their health. An observation made following a recent conviction from the Court of Instance of Alicante.
The sentence comes after two neighbors presented different complaints to their City Council regarding the music and loud noises that were generated inside a nightclub, close to their homes. “Those affected formally brought the facts to the attention of the Alicante City Council in February and July 2022,” says the lawyer. However, after several attempts to check the decibels emitted, The Administration did not solve the problem and the noises continued.
The City Council did not solve the problem
Later, in 2025, they filed complaints in the months of April, May, July and September; “One of them even had more than 20 signatures from neighbors,” says Gómez. A situation that, although it was correctly notified by those affected to the City Council, no solution was found. It was for this reason that they decided to present an administrative claim with the aim of carrying out the necessary procedures to eliminate the inconvenience generated by the disco.
From the City Council, they had tried to carry out decibel measurements on different occasions. Specifically, the local police had been in charge of going to the homes of those affected and carrying out the necessary checks to determine if they reached levels higher than those established in municipal ordinances during night and rest hours. However, These actions were insufficient.
Due to this situation, and as Raúl Gómez explains, the judge of seat number 1 of the Contentious-Administrative Section established a criterion to determine if the Administration should assume responsibility: “It is not enough to ask ourselves if the City Council did something, You have to ask yourself if what was really done was appropriate to solve the problem.“, that is, he had to have taken effective measures to correct the neighbors’ inconvenience.
The recorded levels reached 59.9 dB
According to the resolution, after failed attempts by local police to measure the decibel levels emitted by the nightclub, “a formal summons was not consistently articulated in writing, by email or by administrative notification that would allow the checks to be properly carried out.” That’s when The neighbors decided to get their own expert evidence.
The lawyer assures that the decibel levels recorded during different nights between November and December of the year 2024 “reached values approximately between 35.3 and 50.9 dB“. It should be taken into account that, although the figure may vary depending on municipal regulations, the general limit is usually between 25 and 30 dB at night in residential areas. Some evidence that they decided to present before the Court of Instance of Alicante.
A compensation of 12,000 euros to the neighbors
The latter’s sentence stated that “a repeated nocturnal and objectively serious acoustic interference was proven,” the lawyer summarizes. Something that would directly affect, as Raúl Gómez explains, the rights established in article 18.1 of the Constitution, related to personal and family privacy; and 18.2, which establishes the inviolability of the home. Well, “our home is our constitutional refuge and we have every right to be respected, even within it.
That is why position number 1 of the Contentious-Administrative Section of the Court of Instance of Alicante sentenced the City Council to compensate the two neighbors with 12,000 euros who had filed complaints about the noise. Well, as the lawyer and collaborator of ‘It’s Not Hours’ recalls, “when the Administration does not act as guarantor of this, it will be sanctioned, as in this case.” Although it should be remembered that the sentence is not final and can be appealed.