On the contrary - it isn't. And party wall surveyors are not employees. Once appointed they are administrators of the act and their duty is to the act. You cannot un-appoint a PWA surveyor because you don't like what they decide.
Neighbours having an extesion and say we have to pay to remo
- Thread starter lisap
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Agree with Jeds.
The PWA is a bit like a safety net. Either you are in it or you ain't. Jumping in and out is not an option whereby you don't like the decisions, particularly as there is more than one party involved.
The PWA is a bit like a safety net. Either you are in it or you ain't. Jumping in and out is not an option whereby you don't like the decisions, particularly as there is more than one party involved.
We have just seen the draft award (second draft). I think we recieved it by error and shouldnt have seen it but one part says:
Take all reasonable precautions and provide all necessary support to retain the land and buildings comprised within the Adjoining Owner’s property. (Except where the adjoining owner has illegally positioned concrete fence posts and panels on Mr Them Land. These will be removed and land will be retained at Mr & Mrs US expense.)
We havent agreed to this so can they write something if we havent come to a decision!? Also as I keep going back to its been in ten years and this is the first time they have said for us to remove it! We havent intentional done anything illgally, we never do! Will this have to go to a legal battle or can party wall surveyors sort the decision?
I dont think I can take much more stress! and it hasnt even started!
Take all reasonable precautions and provide all necessary support to retain the land and buildings comprised within the Adjoining Owner’s property. (Except where the adjoining owner has illegally positioned concrete fence posts and panels on Mr Them Land. These will be removed and land will be retained at Mr & Mrs US expense.)
We havent agreed to this so can they write something if we havent come to a decision!? Also as I keep going back to its been in ten years and this is the first time they have said for us to remove it! We havent intentional done anything illgally, we never do! Will this have to go to a legal battle or can party wall surveyors sort the decision?
I dont think I can take much more stress! and it hasnt even started!
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Horrible position to be in, but worth thinking about getting your own builder to move the boundary just for a quite life before going to law.
I can see you are being wound up more and more by the attitude of your neighbours it's such a shame they could not simply come to an agreement with you in the first place, after all it's them that want to make alterations.
One thing you might want to Google is "Adverse Possession" you are just on the cusp of it, as where it was 12 years it was changed to 10 years in 2002.
http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/professional/guides/practice-guide-4
like all these things they are open to interpretation but perhaps the threat of legal action from you to ratify your claim to the land might be a lever on your behalf. Afraid though it will mean at least some solicitor costs to check your position and send out paperwork.
I had a problem with some land in my garden that had been given over in a "gentlemans agreement" between previous owners, luckily my solicitor advised me to take out an insurance policy (transferrable to any new buyer) so if there is a dispute at some time the costs are covered
Good luck
footprints
I can see you are being wound up more and more by the attitude of your neighbours it's such a shame they could not simply come to an agreement with you in the first place, after all it's them that want to make alterations.
One thing you might want to Google is "Adverse Possession" you are just on the cusp of it, as where it was 12 years it was changed to 10 years in 2002.
http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/professional/guides/practice-guide-4
like all these things they are open to interpretation but perhaps the threat of legal action from you to ratify your claim to the land might be a lever on your behalf. Afraid though it will mean at least some solicitor costs to check your position and send out paperwork.
I had a problem with some land in my garden that had been given over in a "gentlemans agreement" between previous owners, luckily my solicitor advised me to take out an insurance policy (transferrable to any new buyer) so if there is a dispute at some time the costs are covered
Good luck
footprints
they cannot make you pay without agreement
who ever employes the builder pays the builder
you cannot be forced to pay just because they say
but iff you are presented with a copy do not sign it
the facts are in dispute so nothing can happen untill the dispute is resolved
if they go ahead without agreement they must bear the costs
who ever employes the builder pays the builder
you cannot be forced to pay just because they say
but iff you are presented with a copy do not sign it
the facts are in dispute so nothing can happen untill the dispute is resolved
if they go ahead without agreement they must bear the costs
we have had a builder look at it footprints and he said it could be two days work so £600+. He also said he couldnt believe they were saying theywere going to charge us as they have to dig the hole anyway and he wouldnt even dream of doing such a thing. I feel the nieghbours are doing it to 'get back at us' for the charges the PWS charges which are beyhond our control. We didnt even know the fee until the nieghbour told us in yet another a threatening verbal attack. i jsut want it all to be over. £600 isnt somethig you just pay to get it over with though
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I did see in your previous post that your builder was quoting £600 which would infuriate me in your position.
I simply wanted to suggest that using your own builder whilst costly, at least gives you the satisfaction of not paying next door any money, and in the event of any problems with the new fence you will be able to get him back. I doubt the builder next door will give much in the way of guarantees!
Otherwise do as Big-all says, in effect stonewall and delay his build for as long as possible, he will want to get his work done and if it starts running into bad weather later in the year another year will pass before he can have the extension finished.
With luck his builder will persuade him to just let him get on with it.
Regarding scaffolding on your land, I ‘ain’t no lawyer but my understanding is you should give neighbours access for maintaince of their property if there is no extension there now to maintain I don’t see he has any right to set foot on your property let alone erect scaffolding.
Just one other point it might be worth posting a couple of photos on here, as they say one is worth a thousand words you might find some other possible solutions suggested then.
Hope it goes well for you,
footprints
I simply wanted to suggest that using your own builder whilst costly, at least gives you the satisfaction of not paying next door any money, and in the event of any problems with the new fence you will be able to get him back. I doubt the builder next door will give much in the way of guarantees!
Otherwise do as Big-all says, in effect stonewall and delay his build for as long as possible, he will want to get his work done and if it starts running into bad weather later in the year another year will pass before he can have the extension finished.
With luck his builder will persuade him to just let him get on with it.
Regarding scaffolding on your land, I ‘ain’t no lawyer but my understanding is you should give neighbours access for maintaince of their property if there is no extension there now to maintain I don’t see he has any right to set foot on your property let alone erect scaffolding.
Just one other point it might be worth posting a couple of photos on here, as they say one is worth a thousand words you might find some other possible solutions suggested then.
Hope it goes well for you,
footprints
I will try and put photos on. Its quite a difficult place to photo, and show anything, but people here might see something!! Just got to find the time! Its difficult to get on the computer without my two rugrats hogging it, hence all the spelling mistakes!
Oh my, Lisa your neighbours are the pits.
I concur that whilst you should allow access on your land for maintenance of buildings, they have no right of access to construct (though a PWA will often make arrangements for this it is not necessarily the case... )
The funny thing is, that your surveyor is laughing... because every time your neighbours screw things up or make spurious claims then the surveyor has to do more work... and he charges to your neighbours. Basically your neighbours are too dim to realise they are making the costs worse for themselves!
I can't see that there will be any agreement that will see you paying for any of the works to the fence. At the end of the day, they are only "claiming" that the post is in the wrong place anyway, this doesn't seem to have been proved by any stretch. You mentioned that you notified the neighbours when you first put the fence in... I don't suppose you have this in writing?
I concur that whilst you should allow access on your land for maintenance of buildings, they have no right of access to construct (though a PWA will often make arrangements for this it is not necessarily the case... )
The funny thing is, that your surveyor is laughing... because every time your neighbours screw things up or make spurious claims then the surveyor has to do more work... and he charges to your neighbours. Basically your neighbours are too dim to realise they are making the costs worse for themselves!
I can't see that there will be any agreement that will see you paying for any of the works to the fence. At the end of the day, they are only "claiming" that the post is in the wrong place anyway, this doesn't seem to have been proved by any stretch. You mentioned that you notified the neighbours when you first put the fence in... I don't suppose you have this in writing?
No it isn't in writing! we try and get everything in writing now (but they refuse!) we have had another horrible encounter with them. think he is trying to get us to agree to paying for the fence even though they surveyors have it as part of their award. The line of junction notice said removal of fence anyway. The current draft of the award is contradictory! They are trying to make out that their builder is adding this on, but we argue that it would have been part of the job in the first place. he is now trying to say there is movement in the fence posts anyway, so I think he is trying to cover himself if anything happens to say it wasn't in right. I actually push them regularly to check and no movement, however they have just removed the hedge from behind it so may have caused the damage. the fence post is also near the soakaway pipe and I think they are going to pin damage (if any happens) of that on us too! They caught us in the front garden when we were seeing visitors off. He wouldn't come on our land and didnt want to be caught on cctv (which we have pointing on our front door) I feel this shows what type of people they are! We were then told I was the one causing 'steering' everything and holding it up (not sure what I would gain from this!?) That I was an agoraphobic that needed psychiatric help (i'm a stay at home mum who doesn't drive, with a teaching qualification so we do lots of stuff without going to preschool but go out to other things three times a week! we also have a big garden (3 times bigger than theirs!) so don't need to play in the street!) We were also told we were weird as we didn't go out at night and go on holidays! (we don't go out at night because we think children need a routine. if we meet friends its in the day time and we don't go on hols as with the children being young we prefer to go out places for the day and come back to their own bed!)
We are fed up of the verbal abuse that just vindictive. most other things we were shouted at about were out of our control, like the drawing that their architect had drawn wrong or the forms their architect filled out wrong! So fed up. It like living in a nightmare you cant get out of. We are being told by a builder that we know that came to look at it the fence posts, would have to be removed to do the build. They are saying they wouldn't.
Sorry to fill this page with moans, but its been a bad day. I feel like I would like everyone to come round so I can constantly hear your words of wisdom! you lot give so much support! Sorry to go off on one!
forgot to add, the lady (if she deserves that title) of the house said that we couldn't tell them when to do diy and he will be doing it at night and on sundays. He has to go to work then take son to football so he will be doing it at night. We said it was the rules and she said no one can tell her what to do!!
We are fed up of the verbal abuse that just vindictive. most other things we were shouted at about were out of our control, like the drawing that their architect had drawn wrong or the forms their architect filled out wrong! So fed up. It like living in a nightmare you cant get out of. We are being told by a builder that we know that came to look at it the fence posts, would have to be removed to do the build. They are saying they wouldn't.
Sorry to fill this page with moans, but its been a bad day. I feel like I would like everyone to come round so I can constantly hear your words of wisdom! you lot give so much support! Sorry to go off on one!
forgot to add, the lady (if she deserves that title) of the house said that we couldn't tell them when to do diy and he will be doing it at night and on sundays. He has to go to work then take son to football so he will be doing it at night. We said it was the rules and she said no one can tell her what to do!!
We are not disputing one post is over by about an inch. They say three inch, (so that show something about his manhood I think!) It was difficult to put in but it was ten years ago. we knew it wasn't straight about 6 years ago when we had a patio laid, but didn't know it was over, just thought it wasn't straight. the neighbour actually came round and helped put in a trellis panel next to it as we wanted to make sure it was in the right place, on our land. When he bought that one up yesterday, we said "you were there measuring it", he said "have you got the evidence"!! (actually I do know the day it was put in because it was at a time when we started writing down what was happening, as the woman of the house was having another verbal attack)
So worn down! We haven't once thrown personal insults at them but yesterday they insulted me my family and the way we choose to live and we feel this can not continue
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Mmm call me a suspicious old fool, but I wonder if his complaint that you are always home, means he would like to nip out and do some work while you are not around. Any chance of adding a camera to your CCTV to cover the back garden?
Otherwise sorry to say I can only offer sympathy. I have had bad neighbours in the past myself, though this was just noise, with myself and the neighbour the other side trying to get them to answer the door over the sound of Pink Floyd on full volume at 3am, it was years before I could hear “Another brick in the Wall” without seething.
It’s just as well we don’t have the US approach to gun ownership or I would still be serving life!
Otherwise sorry to say I can only offer sympathy. I have had bad neighbours in the past myself, though this was just noise, with myself and the neighbour the other side trying to get them to answer the door over the sound of Pink Floyd on full volume at 3am, it was years before I could hear “Another brick in the Wall” without seething.
It’s just as well we don’t have the US approach to gun ownership or I would still be serving life!
Seems to me the surveyors have decided the boundary is in the incorrect position. Not sure how they have done this since it is not possible to determine a boundary position down to just inches. I would write to your appointed surveyor and firstly point out that you do not accept that the fence post is in the incorrect position. Point out that, if it is necessary to remove the fence to carry the works, then the cost to do this would be the same regardless of the position of the fence. Ask for a written justification of extra expenses.
Bear in mind that it is for the surveyors to finally agree the award. You can offer your opinions but ultimately they decide. If you disagree with the award you have 14 days to appeal. So be on your toes.
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