I'm planning a loft conversion. It will require two steel joists across the party walls of our terraced house. I've given the neighbours party wall act letters and it's not going smoothly!
One of them is saying they want to have the wall surveyed. This seems fair enough, but who pays for the survey? Is it just me, because I'm the person doing the work? Seems a bit unfair as it gives a grumpy neighbour the chance to cause me unnecessary costs. A chap up the road had this situation and his neighbour insisted on using the most expensive surveyor in town.
On the other side, the neighbour has just accepted an offer on her flat. She doesn't now want to say yes to the party wall notice because she will not be here when the work is done. She's also concerned with putting off her buyer. As I understand it the party wall act is nothing to do with this - she is the current owner and she is meant to either say yes or go into dispute with me over it. It's up to her buyer as to whether this affects the sale, but as long as all is disclosed there should be no problem. Anyway, she's delaying, which under the act automatically means we go into dispute after 2 weeks. More costs, but what would a surveyor say about this anyway?!?
made it clear where the financial responsibilities lie. I will read it again. So essentally if a neighbour doesn't like the idea of one doing some work, they are free to throw a hefty spanner in the works. I guess the obverse would be that I was free to cost them money which would also not seem right.
Indeed, I have good relations with my neighbours and I value that immensely. I think they are both acting in good faith, but the one who's delaying because of her house sale is leaving me with no option other than to invoke the dispute procedure, as she's refusing to respond either way. I think she is not thinking it through - if she agrees and informs her buyer, she is surely in a better position than if she disputes it with me, in which case she will have to tell her buyer about that, which is more likely to put them off.
Purely as an outside observer.... Your neighbour is doing nothing to provoke this situation. You are choosing to alter the structure which *may* undermine his safety and security. Why on earth should he pay for your choices ?
Are your plans so urgent? Why not wait and deal with the new occupants and safeguard her transaction in the process. If your proposals are sound, they will get approved eventually.
The PW Act is basically toothless in that if you invoke it you end up paying lots of money but if you ignore it it isn't retrospective. Just go ahead and do the work, preferably while the neighbours are away and make sure you don't damage their property in the process. If you give people PW notice of course they'll want a surveyor to safeguard their interests at your expense but if you just go ahead they'll have no idea how to take out an injunction to stop you or want to pay the costs involved. Once the work is done your only liability is for damages caused but you always faced those anyway.
I think technically you're probably right and it did cross my mind to go that way when I read that they would have to take out an injunction to stop me. But as I said in an earlier post, I value my good relations with the neighbours.
You pay. 20 years back I did the plans for a loft conversion in Notting Hill and my client said he couldn't be doing with all this nonsense. Unfortunately the neighbour was a drinking buddy of a partner in a high profile firm of Mayfair surveyors. After the stop work legal letter guess who my client ended up paying for.
You might find it worth getting hold of a copy of "Party Walls: And What to Do with Them" originally by John Anstey, latest revision 2005. If it's as good as the original, you'll actually enjoy reading it!
Remarkably stupid advice from someone who clearly has no idea of the consequences. The neighbour only has to go to a solicitor who can apply for an injunction that day. You will end up paying all those costs as well as those for the PWA fees. Furthermore if and when you come to sell the property you will be asked to sign a declaration that all necessary permissions have been obtained. With a PW award you are stuffed on that.
Why don't you 'turn the steels round' and span them front to back rather than side to side, and avoid the party wall work? If they span side to side, how do you expect to get them in?
If your works impact on the Party Wall you need your neighbour's consent. That is the law. If they don't consent, then a 'dispute' is deemed to have arisen and the provisions of the Party Wall, etc. Act apply.
For a relatively straightforward job, like a loft conversion, the Act encourages all the owners to appoint an 'agreed surveyor', who will fairly look after everyone's interests. And you would be responsible for settling that person's account.
You post tends to suggest that you a) are not familiar with the Party Wall procedures, or b) were badly advised in the first place.
On most houses, side to side is the shorter span and you've got masses of brickwork to dissipate the concentrated loads under the beam ends. If you've got a bay window at the front its' even harder, also beam ends sticking out of a roof and leaded over look awful IMO.
_Across_ the party wall? Do you mean _penetrating_ the PW so that part of your steel joists will be visible from your neighbours' side of the PW.? The usual practise is for the joists to be fitted to 'hangars' on your sides.
Of course houses vary in construction but with mine the party wall is 9" brick so you simply remove one bricks worth of thickness and cast in a padstone.
This is indeed the plan. We may joint the steels to get them in. Front- back is much longer and there is a bay, plus the party walls are designed to be load bearing, all the floor joists run side to side. It's the standard way to do it around here.
While I accept that if I want to do work for my benefit, I should pay for any surveys, it does seem unfair that an uncooperative neighbour can force me to have to shell out for two surveyors. If all the involved parties did this, I would be facing a hurdle of several thousand before I could even start work, so effectively my neighbours could make it impossible to proceed.
When I did this I paid my surveyor to look at the neighbours side, before doing anything. It would be a very unreasonable neighbour who refuses this IMHO
The peace of mind of being to give ownership for any future compliants to someone elses indemnity insurance was worth =A3350 easily HTH phil
I have a very detailed idea of the consequences having been in the situation and made a study of the issues.
The neighbour only has to go to a solicitor who can apply for
The neighbour has to be damn sure that whatever work they can hear being done actually falls within the Party Wall Act provisions and that they have a right to stop it. In most cases, the vast majority in fact, your average neighbour will have no idea how to obtain an injunction, whether he is entitled to one, what the PW Act is or that it even exists. The court will want evidence that it's a PW matter before granting an injunction and if it turns out that the neighbour has stopped the work without cause he can end up on the receiving end of a claim for the additional costs he's created.
You will end up paying all those costs as well as
Only if the neighbour sues you to recover those costs and wins. Taking out an injunction doesn't mean that the court awards the costs of it to the other party
Furthermore if and when you come to sell the
Any Party Wall matter that requires the appointment of surveyors is technically classed as a dispute anyway and will affect both properties when it becomes time to sell. However it's a common and easily explained matter and unlikely to make a scrap of difference to a buyer.
To the OP. Ask any surveyor about PW matters and you'll find that in nearly
100% of cases if you serve a PW notice on a neighbour they'll escalate it to a 'dispute' simply by not agreeing to the works within 14 days and also require their own surveyor in addition to yours. It's a no lose situation for them and in fact the prudent thing to do. So these costs should always be factored in because they're always going to arise.
Similarly however, if you don't give PW notice then in nearly all cases nothing will happen when you do the work. Your problem is in having given the notice and revealed your hand. One strategy is to do some additional works close to the party wall which don't actually affect it and see what happens. The noise will travel through to the other side from a long way from the party wall and quite likely sound as though it's affecting it. If the neighbours threaten an injunction you can let them in the safe knowledge that you aren't actually doing PW works. It will cost them a grand or so to take out the injunction and they have no way of getting that back from you. If nothing happens with what sounds to them like PW works then it's unlikely anything will when you actually do the PW works.
Once the PW works are complete there's nothing they can do anyway. If you can tell when they're in or out and do it when they're away there's really nothing to stop you.
Why do you think you should be exempt from complying fully with the Act? Your neighbours are entitled to the protection that the Act gives. It also gives you some protection if anything goes wrong with work the surveyor(s) have approved. Regard as a form of insurance.
We insisted on a survey when our neighbours knocked down an extension alongside ours, but mainly because they never once spoke to us after we moved in...
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