ABA Family Legal Guide

Renting Residential Property

Renting Basics

Lease Clauses to Consider

What can the tenant do if other tenants in the building make noise and interfere with the tenant's "right of quiet enjoyment" of the premises?

Traditionally, the right of quiet enjoyment referred to the ability of a tenant to live somewhere without being disturbed by the landlord giving another person a right to the property. Today, the concept has been broadened to include the right to live somewhere without being disturbed by the noise from other tenants. The reasoning is that if the landlord imposes the duty to be quiet upon his tenants, then those tenants have the right to force the landlord to enforce that lease clause so they will not be disturbed by the noise from other tenants.