3. I am a tenant of an apartment unit who have been disturbed by my neighbour (since he habitually sings karoake at a high volume at night). I complained to the manager of the building and was told that as I was not the owner of the property. He further stated that I did not have any right under the deed of mutual covenant. What can I do?

A deed of mutual covenant is a contract binding on all owners of a multi-unit or multi-storey building. It basically sets out rules for the management and regulation of the building. A detailed deed of mutual covenant can run to over a hundred pages.

It may be technically correct that a tenant, not being the owner of the apartment unit, does not have any right under the deed of mutual covenant. Yet it does not preclude the building manager (or the owners-incorporation of the building) from exercising its power conferred by the deed of mutual covenant.

A typical deed of mutual covenant will state that a unit owner shall not cause or permit nuisance (either created by the owner or his/her tenant) to other occupiers of the same building. Therefore, subject to what the deed of mutual covenant exactly says, the building manager can do whatever it is empowered to do under the deed of mutual covenant to stop the singing neighbour, including taking legal action.

The tenancy document made between the tenant and the landlord may also contain a clause under which the landlord covenants to procure that all parties bound by any deed of mutual covenant observe and perform the deed. That is to say, even if the tenant indeed has no right under the deed of mutual covenant, the landlord has a duty to assist the tenant in stopping the singing neighbour by exercising the landlord's right under the deed.

Eventually, if the tenant finds himself/herself facing with a deed of mutual covenant which is silent on the issue of nuisance, the only option is probably to sue the singing neighbour under the law of tort (one of the grounds for claiming monetary compensation via civil litigation ) . While it may not be easy to quantify the monetary damages caused by the singing, the tenant may try to obtain a court order for an injunction which prohibits the neighbour from singing at night. As the relevant legal procedures are complicated, it is strongly recommended to obtain lawyer's assistance.