There's a shared double brick wall between my part of the house and the neighbours. Does one brick belong to both of us?
If I plan an extension, would it have to stagger in one brick so it joins onto mine of the two, or could it continue along the line of the existing wall if the neighbour agrees?
George
If your neighbour was planning a similar extension at the same time then no real problem. You could come to an arrangement with your neighbour but it could be become problematic should either of you come to selling the property. Build on your side of the boundary and save yourself some hassle.
Richard
If the neighbour agrees then anything might be possible including doing an extension on both sides of the boundary line. Otherwise I think there is some minimium gap you have to leave from the boundary line. IANAL.
Try asking in uk.legal you will get more informed answers there.
Yes and the problem that brought here was that I have a wall between my garden and the neighbour, now they cannot get in between their new wall of the extension and my wall to paint their wall nor can I paint the other side of my wall. I do wish somebody had thought this through and asked us. We would have willingly allowed them to remove our old wall, but since they made their bed, it will have to wait till I feel imike getting rid of the wall, then of course I will need to make a fence with removable panels so it can be painted and allow access to the wall. Shades of my pink half of the drainpipe? Brian
No, it's a shared wall, right through to both sides. BTW, you probably mean a 'full brick' wall, i.e. it's the width of a brick length (9" in old money, plus any finishes applied).
The best way to do this is to get your neighbour's permission to extend the existing wall as it is, which includes going over their side of the boundary. In exchange, it's shared and they also have the right to use it for supporting an extension. This would all need to be done via the Party Wall Act as mentioned previously. You need to pay your neighbour for getting independant structural advice, to ensure their property isn't damaged and that the foundations laid will support additional load of their extension later.
If you can't get the cooperation of your neighbour, you will need to step the wall in, possibly by a full brick length. You will in any case need to go through the provisions of the Party Wall Act, including paying for independant structural advice/survey for your neighbour (unless they are silly and decline independant structural advice, but if they have a mortgage with moderate to high loan to value, their lender will insist on this anyway).
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