Can I lay laminate or a hard floor in my apartment?

There is no single rule for Dutch owners' associations. Your deed of division states which model regulations your building refers to, and that can be the 1973, 1983, 1992, 2006 or 2017 version. The wording on floors differs per version.

The deed of division takes precedence. On top of that there may be house rules and decisions taken by the general meeting about floors. Ask your board or property manager for all three before you order a floor.

Do that genuinely in advance. A floor that is down and has to come up again is the most expensive way to read this page.

The 2017 model regulations prohibit parquet, laminate, stone and tiles except in the kitchen and the bathrooms. There is an exception: it is allowed if the covering meets standards set in the house rules or adopted by the general meeting, and if it causes no unreasonable nuisance to other residents.

If no such standards exist, the fallback in the regulations themselves applies. On a concrete floor the covering has to improve the impact sound insulation index by more than ten decibels.

That improvement has to be established in line with NEN 1070 or NEN 5077, or their successor. So it is a measurement, not a sales pitch.

If you do not meet the standard, unreasonable nuisance is presumed and you start a goal down. If you do meet it, that presumption falls away.

That is not the same as being in the right. Even above ten decibels there can still be unlawful nuisance if the noise is substantial in practice. Courts look at what the neighbours actually hear.

In practice that means your underlay is the floor, not the ceiling. A floating screed, a proper edge strip and no rigid connection between floor and wall or pipework do more than the last decibel on the product sheet.

That happens, and courts have upheld such bans. So you can live in a building where the answer is simply no, however good your underlay is.

Ask for permission in writing and have it minuted at the general meeting. A verbal nod from a board member who is gone next year is worth nothing once a neighbour complains.

If you want the ban changed, that is an agenda item for the general meeting, not a discussion with your property manager.

Ask for a test report on the build up that will actually be laid at your place, meaning the combination of underlay and top layer as you are having it fitted. A report on a different build up says nothing about your floor.

Put your association's requirement into the quote word for word, with the figure. Then it is part of the job rather than something to argue about afterwards.

Watch the edges. Impact sound travels through every rigid connection: skirting that touches the floor, pipes coming through it, a door threshold screwed down tight. That is where it goes wrong in practice, not in the middle of the room.