Hi,
My neighbours had a basement built (London mid terraced) and as a consequence, we had significant cracking to one room and a few cracks to three other rooms.
We had an independent party wall surveyor who took photos before and after and he believes that there is no arguement that the cracks are caused by the building work next door.
He said that he will draft a letter to the neighbours party wall surveyor outlining the damage. We asked to see the letter to discuss the contents before and he said no, he works for the party wall and not us and that we are to trust him.
He has now sent a letter to the neighbours party wall surveyor and suggested they pay us £2,125 + vat so that we can redecorate ourselves rather than have the neighbours builder correct the cracks.
We are not confident that this is enough money to fix the cracks and have the rooms painted so that it is all the same colour rather than patch work. We paid £1,500 per room to have each stripped back, replastered and painted 3 years ago. The surveyor has told us we cannot expect the neighbours to redecorate the whole room.
Ideally we would either like firm quotes to correct the damage and ask the neighbours to pay this cost or we want the neighbours builders to correct the damage back to its original standard.
So I have two questions really.
1) Now that he has sent the letter to the neighbours surveyor already asking for the £2,125 + vat, what are our rights to reject this?
2) Are we entitled to have the whole room repainted or just the affected wall? If only the affected wall is painted then the colours won't match so we'll be out of pocket to have the room redecorated.
My neighbours had a basement built (London mid terraced) and as a consequence, we had significant cracking to one room and a few cracks to three other rooms.
We had an independent party wall surveyor who took photos before and after and he believes that there is no arguement that the cracks are caused by the building work next door.
He said that he will draft a letter to the neighbours party wall surveyor outlining the damage. We asked to see the letter to discuss the contents before and he said no, he works for the party wall and not us and that we are to trust him.
He has now sent a letter to the neighbours party wall surveyor and suggested they pay us £2,125 + vat so that we can redecorate ourselves rather than have the neighbours builder correct the cracks.
We are not confident that this is enough money to fix the cracks and have the rooms painted so that it is all the same colour rather than patch work. We paid £1,500 per room to have each stripped back, replastered and painted 3 years ago. The surveyor has told us we cannot expect the neighbours to redecorate the whole room.
Ideally we would either like firm quotes to correct the damage and ask the neighbours to pay this cost or we want the neighbours builders to correct the damage back to its original standard.
So I have two questions really.
1) Now that he has sent the letter to the neighbours surveyor already asking for the £2,125 + vat, what are our rights to reject this?
2) Are we entitled to have the whole room repainted or just the affected wall? If only the affected wall is painted then the colours won't match so we'll be out of pocket to have the room redecorated.