Amenity Noise Disputes: What the Nuisance Covenant Requires and What the Board Must Do

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

• Published September 25, 2026
• Reviewed by Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA, September 26, 2026
• Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026
• Applies to: HOAs · Country clubs

Noise complaints about the pool deck, the courts and the clubhouse arrive the same way: one owner, a long email, and a demand that the board do something tonight. The board's job is neither to grant the demand nor to dismiss it. It is to apply the nuisance covenant the community actually adopted, to gather objective evidence, and to make a documented decision. That sequence protects the board from both directions of the dispute, which is the point.

What the nuisance covenant actually requires

Nearly every declaration here contains some version of "no noxious or offensive activity shall be carried on upon any parcel, nor shall anything be done thereon which may be or become an annoyance or nuisance to the neighborhood." Boards read that and hear an absolute rule. It is not. It is a covenant that incorporates a legal standard, and that standard has content.

Florida's law of private nuisance requires an appreciable, substantial, tangible injury resulting in actual, material, physical discomfort, not merely a tendency to injure. The test is the effect on an ordinary person with a reasonable disposition, in ordinary health, possessing average and normal sensibilities, and not on persons of delicate or dainty habits of living or of fanciful or fastidious tastes. The court weighs whether the use of the property is reasonable under the circumstances, considering all the interests affected and public policy.

One factor from that line of authority is directly useful to boards: timing matters. The Supreme Court of Florida has said that the time at which the noise occurs is important, and that conduct which would be a nuisance at three in the morning is not necessarily a nuisance during the day. That is why hours of use are the first mitigation a board should consider and often the last one it needs.

Two consequences. The answer to "is this a nuisance" is almost never obvious from the complaint alone, so a board deciding on the first email is guessing. And the covenant cuts against overreaction as well as inaction: ordinary daytime use of a facility the declaration created, at the hours the community has always used it, is not a violation because one household finds it irritating.

Objective standards and subjective ones

Most amenity noise fights are really a fight about whose perception controls. Three different standards get mixed together, and separating them clarifies the board's task.

The third row is the board's friend. A specific rule converts an unprovable nuisance argument into a factual question. "Amplified music is prohibited at the pool" and "courts close at dusk" are enforceable on a manager's observation. "Residents shall not create excessive noise" makes the board litigate what excessive means every time.

Local noise ordinances as a yardstick

Your association does not enforce a county ordinance, and code enforcement does not enforce your declaration. The ordinance is still useful three ways: it supplies a number the community can adopt by reference, it shows what the county considers reasonable in a residential setting, and a documented violation of it is powerful evidence in a covenant case.

Lee County's noise control ordinance sets maximum permissible sound levels by receiving land use. For residential, public space and agricultural receiving uses it allows 66 dBA during the day and 55 dBA at night, with nighttime running from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., measured with an A-weighted meter at or within the property line of the receiving land use, and with a requirement that the measured noise be at least 5 dB above the ambient level. Collier County regulates noise under Chapter 54, Article IV of its Code of Ordinances, and the municipalities in both counties have their own provisions.

Two cautions. Ordinances are amended, so confirm the current table before adopting anything by reference. And many ordinances exempt sporting and recreational activity, which can put the amenity generating the complaint outside the ordinance entirely while leaving it squarely inside your nuisance covenant.

Measuring and documenting

The single most valuable thing a board can do in a noise dispute is create a record that is not a set of emails. A workable protocol:

1. Open a complaint log: date, time, duration, location, complaining household, what was happening, who responded. Log every complaint, including repeats from the same household.
2. Ask the complaining owner for specifics in writing: dates, times, duration, and what activity produced the sound. A complaint that cannot be described this way usually cannot be proved either.
3. Have the manager observe at the stated times and record what was actually happening, with the date and time.
4. Commission a measurement by an acoustical consultant at the receiving property and at the source, at the times the complaints identify. Get ambient readings too; both the ordinance comparison and the nuisance analysis depend on them.
5. Price mitigation options in writing, with the expected reduction for each.
6. Put the decision and its basis in the minutes.

Resist two temptations. Do not let a director take readings with a phone app and call it evidence. And do not commission a study without deciding in advance what the board will do with an unfavorable result, since the study is discoverable either way.

Mitigation that actually reduces sound

Options ranked by what they cost and what they buy:

• Hours. Shifting the start time and the close is free, is supported by the timing factor in the nuisance analysis, and resolves a large share of complaints by itself.
• Use rules. Prohibiting amplified music, limiting simultaneous use of the courts nearest homes, and capping event sizes are ordinary rules with immediate effect.
• Barriers. A solid barrier of masonry, stone or engineered acoustic panels blocks sound. A fabric windscreen does not, and selling one to the membership as a noise solution produces a second dispute when it fails.
• Orientation and layout. Where courts or equipment can be relocated or reoriented so the long side rather than the end faces homes, the change is more effective than most add-on treatments.
• Surfacing and equipment. Quieter paddles and balls, softer deck surfaces and resilient mounting help at the margin. Treat them as supplements, not solutions.
• Landscaping. Dense planting is a visual screen and a psychological help. On its own it does very little acoustically.

Pair mitigation with communication. An owner told what the board measured, what it is doing and when the next review occurs is far less likely to file anything than one who got silence for four months. Our guide to tennis and pickleball policies covers the court-specific version.

What happens if the board does nothing

Inaction is a decision with its own exposure. Section 720.305(1) allows an aggrieved owner to bring an action at law or in equity against the association for failure to comply with the governing documents, and the prevailing party is entitled to recover its attorney's fees. An owner who can show the association tolerated a substantial and unreasonable interference in the face of its own nuisance covenant has a claim, and the fee provision is what makes it worth bringing.

Directors also carry the standard of care in section 617.0830: good faith, a manner the director reasonably believes is in the best interests of the corporation, and the care an ordinary prudent person in a like position would reasonably believe appropriate. A board that received twenty complaints, took no measurement and never put the subject on an agenda is not obviously meeting it. The protection directors enjoy for judgment calls attaches to decisions made on information, not to avoidance.

There is a cost to the next board too. Unresolved amenity disputes drive recalls, contested elections and the kind of meeting no one wants to chair.

What happens if the board overreacts

The opposite failure is just as expensive. Closing the courts, banning an activity, or halving the hours in response to one household produces claims from the other direction.

First, section 720.304(1) provides that common areas and recreational facilities shall be available to parcel owners and their invited guests for the use intended, and section 720.304(3) lets an owner sue to enjoin a provision that violates it. A restriction that effectively eliminates the use is what that argument targets.

Second, a board-adopted rule has to be reasonable. Under Hidden Harbour Estates, Inc. v. Basso, a restriction written into the declaration carries a strong presumption of validity, but a rule the board adopts on its own is measured by reasonableness, described in Basso as reasonably related to the promotion of the health, happiness and peace of mind of the owners, building on the reasonableness test set in the earlier Hidden Harbour Estates, Inc. v. Norman decision. A proportionate restriction supported by a measurement meets that test. A ban adopted at the meeting where the complaint was first read does not.

Third, selective enforcement. Restricting the amenity one group uses while leaving another alone, with no documented difference in the noise produced, hands the restricted group its defense. Our covenant enforcement guide covers consistency, and our discussion of enforcing old restrictions covers a covenant left unenforced for years.

When a restriction needs more than a board vote

Before the board adopts a permanent restriction, sort it into one of three categories.

1. A rule within existing authority. Hours, amplified music, guest counts and reservation limits are ordinarily rules the board may adopt if the declaration or bylaws grant rulemaking authority over the use of common areas. Adopt them at a properly noticed board meeting and publish them.
2. A change your declaration reserves to the members. Many declarations require member approval to change the use of a recreational facility or to make a capital improvement over a stated dollar amount. Removing an amenity, or building a permanent sound wall, can land here. Chapter 720 contains no material alteration provision, so unlike a condominium there is no statutory default to fall back on and the declaration is the only answer.
3. An amendment. If the restriction conflicts with something the declaration grants, the board cannot rule its way around it. Amend. Where the documents do not specify a threshold, section 720.306(1)(b) supplies a default of a two-thirds vote of the voting interests.

Getting this sorting wrong is the most common way a well-intentioned noise fix becomes a lawsuit. A rule adopted without authority is unenforceable, and the association usually learns that after it has suspended someone's privileges under it. Our discussion of clubhouse rulemaking authority covers the same question indoors.

Getting to a resolution

If the dispute does not resolve, Chapter 720 routes it before it reaches a courtroom. Section 720.311(2)(a) requires a demand for presuit mediation before filing suit on disputes between an association and a parcel owner regarding the use of or changes to the parcel or the common areas, other covenant enforcement disputes, disputes over amendments to the association documents, disputes about board, committee and membership meetings, and access to official records. Collection of assessments and fines is excluded, and election and recall disputes go to arbitration instead.

The demand is technical. It must identify the dispute with the authority relied on and offer five certified mediators with contact information and rates, and the responding party has 20 days from mailing to respond in writing. A board that treats the demand as a formality and lets the 20 days run gives away the only cheap exit the statute provides.

Mediation is genuinely the right venue for amenity noise. What the owner wants is usually a schedule change, a barrier or a rule, and those are things a mediator can build and a court is poorly equipped to design. Arrive with the measurement, the mitigation pricing and the minutes.

If the association is enforcing against a specific resident's conduct rather than against the amenity itself, the fining and suspension procedure in section 720.305(2) applies: at least 14 days' written notice of the right to a hearing, a hearing before a committee of at least three members who are not officers, directors or employees of the association or their close relatives, and written notice from the committee within 7 days after the hearing. Our guide to tenant and guest conduct covers enforcement where the person making the noise is not the owner.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes helps homeowners association and country club boards in Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties evaluate noise complaints, draft enforceable amenity rules, and respond to presuit mediation demands and covenant enforcement claims. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Covenant Enforcement page.