The plaintiff is the house property owner of Jiafu Square residential quarters Room 3201 in Yuexiu District of Guangzhou City. Guangzhou Jiafu Estate Development co., LTD is the developer of this residential building project. The elevator is near the house of plaintiff, and the equipment of the elevator was installed on the common wall of the plaintiff’s living room. However, the defendant has not taken any measures to narrow down the noise.

The case was brought by the plaintiff in front of the Guangzhou Yuexiu District People’s Court. The results offered by the plaintiff proved that the noise of the elevator equipment is beyond the Specification for Design of Civil Building Acoustic Noise (GB50118-2010) rules limit standard. The defendant has the responsibility to take the effective and reliable measures to reduce the noise and improved the sound environment quality of the housing estate. The same year, the defendant appealed to the intermediate court, but due to the lack of the facts and basis, the appeal was rejected.

(Contribution: Case provided by Professor Tianbao QIN, Tang HE, and Han GAO, Research Institute of Environmental Law, Wuhan University, China)