Chimney breast removal and party-wall agreement question

[tomguest]

I've just moved into 1930s semi detached house and have had the chimney breast on the first floor removed. The builder has added steels which have been approved by building regs.

The next door neighbour was concerned that we didn't get a party wall agreement but the builder said we didn't need to because he was not installing gallows and the steels were only welded to other steels in our property.

Is this the case? Some people at work are saying that we should still have gotten a party-wall agreement and that we can still get one in retrospect. Is this something that we should do?

 

[Nakajo]

A retrospective party wall award? What's that then?

 

[tomguest]

I was told at work (might be completely wrong) that I can get a party-wall agreement now (after the work has been completed) just incase anything goes wrong in the future. I've never had any dealings with party-wall agreements in the past so don't know what they cover / don't cover.

 

[^woody^]

I was told at work

Where do you work? Do they know anything about party walls?

Whether the Act applied or not is irrelevant now, the time has passed. But your builder's interpretation sounds correct, in that welding would not invoke the Act

However the neighbour has exactly the same rights under common law if anything did happen in the future.