The occupier of a house in a street in Mayfair had many years previously converted the ground floor into a stable. A new occupier altered the location of the stable so that the noise of the horses became an annoyance to the next-door neighbour and prevented him from letting his house as lodgings.
Held: Lord Selborne LC said: ‘In making out a case of nuisance of this character, there are always two things to be considered, the right of the Plaintiff and the right of the Defendant. If the houses adjoining each other are so built that from the commencement of their existence it is manifest that each adjoining inhabitant was intended to enjoy his own property for the ordinary purposes for which it and all the different parts of it were constructed, then so long as the house is so used there is nothing that can be regarded in law as a nuisance which the other party has a right to prevent. But, on the other hand, if either party turns his house, or any portion of it, to unusual purposes in such a manner as to produce a substantial injury to his neighbour, it appears to me that that is not according to principle or authority a reasonable use of his own property; and his neighbour, shewing substantial injury, is entitled to protection. I do not regard it as a reasonable or as a usual manner of using the front portion of a dwelling house in such a street as Green Street, that it should be turned into stables for horses; and, if it is so used, then the proprietor is bound to take care that it is so used as not to be a substantial annoyance, detrimental to the comfort and to the value of the neighbours’ property.’
Judges:
Lord Selborne LC
Citations:
(1873) LR 8 Ch D 467
Cited by:
Cited – Southwark London Borough Council v Mills/Tanner; Baxter v Camden London Borough Council HL 21-Oct-1999
Tenants of council flats with ineffective sound insulation argued that the landlord council was in breach of the covenant for quiet enjoyment in their tenancy agreements.
Held: A landlord’s duty to allow quiet enjoyment does not extend to a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Nuisance
Updated: 06 May 2022; Ref: scu.442751