Our nightmare neighbors ‘tortured’ us by waking us up at 5.30am every day – it was unbearable and cost them £16,000

A MILLIONAIRE couple whose lives were made hell by noisy neighbors have been beaten in a huge legal battle.

Children playing cricket, constantly crying and taking steps left 42-year-old Sergey Grazhdankin and his wife Maria sleepless nights.

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They said the activity also caused newly laid floorboards to creak, waking them up between 5.30am and 7.30am “daily”.

The ordeal became so bad that the couple sued city banker Medhi Guissi and his wife Meriem El Harouchi.

After a long-running dispute, Judge Tracey Bloom handed Sergey and his wife victory at Central London County Court on Monday.

Mr Guissi and his wife must now pay £16,087 in compensation and pay a significant proportion of £250,000 in legal bills.

The court heard how the Grazhdankins moved into their £1million-plus fourth-floor apartment in a gated Art Deco building in West Kensington, London, in 2011.

They enjoyed the peace and quiet of the North End House, Fitz-James Avenue, where an elderly lady lived above them for years.

But their peace was shattered when the Giussis bought the aforementioned apartment for £1.1 million in 2018 and began gutting it.

They tore out walls, changed the layout of the room and replaced the carpet with wood flooring, including a floating sound barrier to reduce noise.

But the Grazhdankins said it had been installed incorrectly and nails had been driven through and into the beams, contrary to the manufacturer’s instructions.

It was said that the “incorrect” installation of the floor led to the creaking.

Sergey told the court: “Walking, banging, jumping noises, running children and voices, creaking floor, dropping things on the floor, crying, screaming children and voices.”

“This mainly happens between 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. Living with this every day since we moved has been torture.”

The couple said the noise from the Guissis made them feel like they were in a shared apartment and they suffered from “insomnia” and anxiety in bed.

Mr Guissi accused the pair of complaining about everyday noises and claimed they had become hypersensitive to the sounds of family life.

His lawyer Tom Morris said the noise was due to the “ordinary occupancy” of a family home.

Sergey, who runs an insurance company, then asked Judge Bloom to order the Guissis to tear up the floor and re-lay it in a way that would eliminate the noise of creaking beams.

After complaints and a previous court hearing, Mr. Guissi installed carpets, but the noise was still present and continued to affect the Grazhdankins, he said.

Judge Bloom ruled in Mr Grazhdankin’s favour, saying the couple had been “obviously disturbed” by the noise, even after the carpet had been laid.

Judge Bloom said: “I conclude that there was noise disturbance from 2019, when the work was completed, until the carpet was laid.”

They awarded Mr Grazhdankin damages of £16,087.50 for four months in 2020 and five months in 2021, but said the noise they are now experiencing does not constitute “punitive nuisance”.

They dismissed nuisance and breach of contract claims they had also brought against the building’s owner, North End House Ltd.

The case will be heard in court at a later date to determine what share of the legal bills for the case the parties will have to pay.