Party wall act.

[Jossizy]

Has anyone challenged the agreement as decided by your/their surveyors.

What was the outcome?

 

[^woody^]

Any appeal will turn on its own facts, so will not be relevant to another case

You just need to be sure what you are appealing about - ie whether its valid or not, and there is normally a 14 day time limit

 

[jeds]

I take it you are one of the parties. What are you unhappy about. And how long ago was the award served?

 

[Jossizy]

There has been much disagreement between us and the neighbour, and we have not wanted to offer him help, he being a rapacious pig.

We locked on one of the points made in the PWA in that the surveyors, his and ours, agreed for our 'uninterrupted acces to our property, a slim side passage, and him to access for his builders.

Our point was that this could never work.

Anyhow, he has not tried for access yet.

Where do we stand?

 

[^woody^]

Where do we stand?

In the side passage?

If you have an award then you can only normally appeal within defined time-scales, (14 days) unless the award is so blatantly bad.

You'll need to get some specialist legal advice

 

[Jossizy]

I thought of that.

I don't want to make the lawyers rich though.

 

[^woody^]

You wont have much choice. PW appeals are governed by the Civil Procedure Rules - ie via the county court.

Don't worry about making lawyers rich, they already are, and a bit more money off you wont make a blind bit of difference

 

[Jossizy]

Well, he's going to have to push, because he hasn't come in yet and we have insisted that he considers an overhand wall, rather than have his builders challenging our 'right to uninterrupted access.'
BTW The passageway is our side entrance, with our kitchen door and entry to the street.

I think my point is that both surveyors failed in their duty.

 

[^woody^]

A PW Award is legally binding.

If you obstruct it, or don't conform, then you will be in breach and there's no getting away from that - and the costs you could end up paying for the neighbours delayed work and legal representation could be considerable

 

[jeds]

Well, he's going to have to push, because he hasn't come in yet and we have insisted that he considers an overhand wall, rather than have his builders challenging our 'right to uninterrupted access.'
BTW The passageway is our side entrance, with our kitchen door and entry to the street.

I think my point is that both surveyors failed in their duty.

This is a tricky one and it's going to depend how far you are prepared to take it.

First of all let's make it clear the party wall act gives no right of access to neighbouring land to carry out building works. This is not to be confused with the to enter under s.8 of the act, which is a different thing specifically covered (and allowed) by the act. The question then is whether it's within the surveyors remit to allow that access?

There have been several cases but not many got to court. One that did was sleep v wise. The case was very similar. Surveyors gave access> adjoining owner refused access> owner took adjoining owner to court. The judge ruled that acces be allowed. However, this was in the county court so has no binding authority and the judge also specifically said that the decision was not a general ruling on the party wall act itself. Therefore it remains unknown (in law) if the surveyors have a right to award access?

If you are prepared to take it all the way you could argue that the surveyors were in error and in that case the award would be set aside and the court would order a new one be made. But that will be a long old slog and you might not be successful.

 

[Jossizy]

OK. Where we are now, he has written,chickened out, to say he will not require entry now. This because he has big drainage problems, we share drains, and he has had to take the wall down, spend a fortune re-doing his/and our drains. Then the wall is re-built, to his boundary but, whilst we were out, his builders installed two unfinished rodding points on our land, without our permission. They were on his land before.

As it stands now, we hold a whip hand as he cannot have his works signed off until Thames Water are satisfied. They say he was offered four options re the placement of the rodding points, we were never told of those and TW say that, due to the privacy rules, they cannot tell us what they were.

He now, after saying he did not want entry, wants to come in, he has not said why and we assume he wants to finish the drains.

With me so far?

I really don't want to go to court over this, for obvious reasons and for some reason he seems as reluctant as us.

It's a stand-off at the moment.....neighbours eh?