Party wall act - does it apply here?

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Hi

I am planning to raise the lintel height on a downstairs chimney breast to create a taller opening for shelving. I have been advised by my LABC office to include the work on a Building Regs application I am also making for work to create a new doorway in an load-bearing wall. The chimney breast is on wall adjoining my neighbours house and LABC have suggested the Party Wall Act may apply - can anyone advise? Is it likely to?

The stack has been removed from the roof and only the sides of the chimney breast remain on my first floor. Next door I beleive that they have removed the chimney breast at least on the ground floor. All of these works took place before we bought the house and I have seen no Party Wall agreement paperwork from their side of from our previous owner.

Thanks in advance
Alp
 
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Technically it does but a full notice and award is over the top for this type of work. My advice is let the neighbour know what you are doing and ask them to let you know if they have any concerns. If they are happy for you to proceed then you don't need to serve notice.

Doing the work with small tools will minimise hammering and vibration - which is the most likely thing to cause a problem. Try to find out if they have anything particularly sensitive near the wall - i.e. Ming vases etc are best removed for the duration. Generally proceed carefully and keep the neighbour informed.
 
Thanks - that is helpful.

I will certainly make them aware of the work so, as you suggest, they can take the Van Gogh's off the wall and move the Ming!

My neighbours are tenants, not the owner, should I try to obtain the owner's contact info and get in touch to advise them of the work?

I'm hoping a hammer and bolster will be sufficient to get the plaster off the wall and then chisel out the brickwork for the new lintel etc. Worst case i'll be needing to get the SDS and chisel onto the plaster, but if other parts of the house are anything to go by this shouldn't be the case. I'll use a couple of props to support the front of breast until the new lintel is fixed so, aprt from the noise, hopefully next door would otherwise by unaffected.
 
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Again, technically you should inform all parties. It's a case of weighing up risk and the main ones are; what's the risk of causing some damage and what's the risk of the neighbour kicking off? 99 times you should be able to get this done without bothering anybody. But if you live next door to a serial complainer it might be different.
 
Much appreciated John. Will go armed with a bottle of wine to say "sorry for the noise/thanks for your understanding" in advance! :p
 
You should definitely check the condition of the Walls and ceilings next door. If theres any cracks take pictures. You never know if you will get the blame for some that's already existing, the amount of times i have heard the phrase "it was alright until you ......." :confused:
 
I agree with that. People often don't notice hairline cracks until they go looking. And then they'll swear blind they just appeared.
 
Thanks chaps. I will try to get in touch with the owner via the tenants/letting agency to make them aware. Hopefully the tenants will be understanding and, with the owners consent, allow me to go in for a quick look.

So, given that I will be putting in a BR application to the LABC and they will eventually come out to inspect this work and the new doorway i intend to create in another wall, how do address the inevitable question of "Did you get a party wall agreement in place for the chimney breast work?" that i suspect will be asked? Even though LABC has acknowledged this isnt their department, I would be surprised if they did not ask and wonder whether it might stand in the way of their sign-off. If I am going through the effort to inform the owner may i just as well get the agreement in place? Is there a typical cost?
 

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