Party wall

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Hi
any advice would be greatly welcomed, bit of a long story so please bear with me. We have put a Dormer on the back of our house, all building regs and planning are good. We honestly had no idea about the Party Wall Act otherwise we would have sorted it.
The steel beams went into the party wall on the 26th September and nothing was said, when the frame went up all hell kicked off with neighbours on both sides. It wasn't until mid November we received a letter from a surveyor informing us about the party wall and asking to come into our house the following morning, this wasn't possible as we were not able to get time off work that quickly.
The following day we received a notice to stop building from their solicitor, we replied that we were on second fixings so not sure if this was possible.
Long story short, their surveyor wants to do a retrospective agreement, met with our surveyor, both decided to not involve another, both happy with the structural engineers calculations etc.
then their surveyor sends a letter and bill to ours and it has nothing in it that was discussed.
On Saturday night we decided to move the bathroom equipment we had on the living room to the attic to make space, on the third trip up I opened the window to get some air to find the neighbour in his garden recording us!!
We have the stairs in but it is all open so the heat is just escaping and we don't seem to be getting any further with any of it.
Any advice....
Thanks
Annka
 
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' all building regs and planning are good'

Pretty surprised that you never heard of the Party Wall Act.

I never bothered with it either, then the party wall got damaged, neighbour went mental, didnt speak to me for months then he done his loft with a party wall agreement and all in the past.

However i steer clear of them, just say hello, morning, nothing else.
 
' all building regs and planning are good'

Pretty surprised that you never heard of the Party Wall Act.

I never bothered with it either when i did my loft dormer then the party wall got damaged, neighbour went mental after 6 months when he found out, didnt speak to me for months then he done his loft with a party wall agreement and all in the past.

However i steer clear of them, just say hello, morning, nothing else cos he worships his house
 
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Londiner2 Thanks for the reply, I have never had an building work done, the architect nor builder mention the Party Wall Act.
Their problem more than anything I think is they don’t want the Dormer full stop as we look into their garden, the fact we could do that from any of the second floor windows doesn’t seem to count, nor the fact that their extension means they can see into our garden. Think they are out to cause as many problems as they can.
We have no one speaking to us in the street, we only moved in in January so what was our dream home has now turned into a nightmare.
 
Was this notice from the solicitor a request or an injunction?
 
Some points on your post;

1. AFAIK, the PWA is not retrospective, so the neighbour's surveyor cannot now demand you make a PWA agreement.
2. The neighbour's solicitor has absolutely no right to demand you stop work.

Ultimately, the Act gives you the right to work on the party wall - the neighbours cannot prevent you from doing that. All the
Act does is to set restrictions on how you do the work, eg timing and noise etc; and also check that the structural work (eg padstones
set into the wall) are adequate.

There is a knowledgeable surveyor on this forum who hopefully might chip in with practical advice.
 
Woody it was a notice with a threat of an injunction and court proceedings.
Tony1851 that was our thought when we found out about the act we read up as much as we could. i emailed their solicitor and asked what legal grounds they have to stop us, but was told the neighbours won’t give consent and he is meeting with them again on Thursday!
Thank you all for your replies and help.
 
The solicitor's letter will be a common one based on intimidation and bluff. Whilst I would not say ignore it (although you could), you can definitely ignore the tone and don't feel that you need to comply and capitulate to their demands, as they carry no weight other than being mere requests.

As for that surveyor, you can ignore him completely as he has no authority or right to get involved as the PW Act does not allow it. The key thing with party wall matters is that everything that is done has to be "pursuant to the Act" - that means in strict accordance to the Act's procedure and rules. So unless you have instigated the PW procedure and gone through the process of needing to appoint a surveyor or surveyors, then no surveyor can get involved, and your neighbours can't appoint PW surveyors for you. They can instruct a surveyor in a private capacity, but he won't be working for the Act nor have any rights under it.

Do not agree anything with him, let him in or even deal with him. He's working for your neighbour not for you and not for the Act.

So down to the Act. There is no facility for the Act to apply or be applied retrospectively. The important thing to remember is that whilst the building work may be on-going, the Act is only concerned with the specific parts of the work that the Act applies to - ie in this case presumably just the beams resting on the party wall? So once that has been done, the Act can't apply.

Ok there may be other options for the neighbour - ie seeking an injunction, there is no guarantee that they will be successful and there could be costs in pursuing that which they may not recover. You could on the face of it, defeat an application to injunct based on the PW Act no longer applying. Their solicitor will know this and will base the advice they give on it - once you tell them.

Therefore what you could do is respond to the solicitor, succinctly and firmly without telling them too much detail to the effect of - the PW Act does not apply to any current ongoing or future work. Therefore you refute their claims and demands. You are aware of your obligations for any damage under common law, but there is none currently and you have not been put on notice of any. All the work has be professionally designed, carried out and inspected by council officers. If that changes, then you will deal with any claims via your advisors as necessary. Further, you are concerned regarding ongoing intimidation and harassment from their client, and you have records and will bring this to the attention of the court if necessary. Please advise your clients that their surveyor has no rights under the PW Act 1996 and should desist from contacting you forthwith on that matter, else you will consider it to be further harassing behaviour.

You may have access to legal advice via your home insurance. If so, you may like to use that. You should certainly have legal cover to help with any claims should that be necessary, so check your policy.
 
Woody
Thank you so much for your reply and information, there was some damaged caused when water got in during the bad weather and my builder offered to put it right but was told it was ok as the neighbour is a painter and decorator, there is also a small crack in their dining room which the surveyor said may or may not have been due to the build but we will obviously put right.
I will respond to their solicitor today as he is due to meet the neighbours tomorrow.
 
The solicitor's letter will be a common one based on intimidation and bluff. Whilst I would not say ignore it (although you could), you can definitely ignore the tone and don't feel that you need to comply and capitulate to their demands, as they carry no weight other than being mere requests.

As for that surveyor, you can ignore him completely as he has no authority or right to get involved as the PW Act does not allow it. The key thing with party wall matters is that everything that is done has to be "pursuant to the Act" - that means in strict accordance to the Act's procedure and rules. So unless you have instigated the PW procedure and gone through the process of needing to appoint a surveyor or surveyors, then no surveyor can get involved, and your neighbours can't appoint PW surveyors for you. They can instruct a surveyor in a private capacity, but he won't be working for the Act nor have any rights under it.

Do not agree anything with him, let him in or even deal with him. He's working for your neighbour not for you and not for the Act.

So down to the Act. There is no facility for the Act to apply or be applied retrospectively. The important thing to remember is that whilst the building work may be on-going, the Act is only concerned with the specific parts of the work that the Act applies to - ie in this case presumably just the beams resting on the party wall? So once that has been done, the Act can't apply.

Ok there may be other options for the neighbour - ie seeking an injunction, there is no guarantee that they will be successful and there could be costs in pursuing that which they may not recover. You could on the face of it, defeat an application to injunct based on the PW Act no longer applying. Their solicitor will know this and will base the advice they give on it - once you tell them.

Therefore what you could do is respond to the solicitor, succinctly and firmly without telling them too much detail to the effect of - the PW Act does not apply to any current ongoing or future work. Therefore you refute their claims and demands. You are aware of your obligations for any damage under common law, but there is none currently and you have not been put on notice of any. All the work has be professionally designed, carried out and inspected by council officers. If that changes, then you will deal with any claims via your advisors as necessary. Further, you are concerned regarding ongoing intimidation and harassment from their client, and you have records and will bring this to the attention of the court if necessary. Please advise your clients that their surveyor has no rights under the PW Act 1996 and should desist from contacting you forthwith on that matter, else you will consider it to be further harassing behaviour.

You may have access to legal advice via your home insurance. If so, you may like to use that. You should certainly have legal cover to help with any claims should that be necessary, so check your policy.


Most of what woody has said is correct but there was a case very recently which isn't binding where it was determined if there is a dispute a notice never needed to be served for the party wall act to apply, and surveyors to be appointed as this is the way the act says disputes are resolved but for it to apply this way there has to be a genuine dispute, a good example is damage or trespass (Continued) (does this apply here). This comes down to Section 10(1)

The case was: E20CL041

If all the notifiable and covered work has completed and there is no damage or dispute then the act stops applying unless damage appears, later on, that is reasonable to say could be caused by the notifiable works.

That being said if you appointed a PW surveyor and your neighbour did as well which is what I've read into above, and there is a genuine dispute the process has to be followed out including paying there bills section 10 is the key part of the act here 10(2) basically says you can't fire a party wall surveyor once legally appointed, the only time they stop work is when the dispute has been resolved by award or the owners agree on a solution.

If they appointed there own, and your 100% certain there isn't a legal dispute you don't need to appoint a PW surveyor, you could get one in agency to reply to the letter stating it doesn't apply for the following reasons and the dispute isn't a valid party wall dispute (this stops enacting the act but gives you a qualified reply (Not just someone calling themself a PW surveyor either a genuine construction professional), I wouldn't rely on a solicitor here unless there a specialist as in my experience on serving on solicitors under the act they don't understand it, its a very unique bit of case law built legislation

I also wouldn't ignore their invoices, they are enforceable if legally appointed as a civil debt under section 17 which means they can take you to magistrate court for recovery of the funds under section 58 of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980. within 6 months of them coming due and this allows them to add costs to the fees as well.

The key items to clarify is was an appointment made regardless of notices to settle a dispute? has damage been done? is notifiable works still to be done?

If you've appointed your own surveyor they should really be discussing these issues with you, if not speak to a local one get there advise
 
So if the the party wall act cannot be applied retrospectively does that mean you can do anything involving a party wall and as long as you do it quickly enough before the neighbour notices what is going on, if they then complain you can just say 'too late now it's done'. :?::!:
 
So if the the party wall act cannot be applied retrospectively does that mean you can do anything involving a party wall and as long as you do it quickly enough before the neighbour notices what is going on, if they then complain you can just say 'too late now it's done'. :?::!:

In theory, yes, but if you cause damage to the neighbour and they sue you, your insurance could argue you didn't follow the law and sue you for any money that needs paying out and the court will look at you very unfavourably, in addition, it's important to note the PWA isn't a bad act, it gives you access to neighbours property you have no other legal right to for construction, or if you want to cut into there property or remove a historic overhanging item as long as you put it right.

You don't get these rights anywhere else and it's worth mentioning its facilitating legislation and the neighbour can't stop the work or access you have the right of access it just has to be reasonable and as they surveyor(s) award.
 
Thank you all for your advise, the neighbours have appointed a party wall survey and we haven’t. We have had a party wall surveyor advising us, the damage they are claiming is minimal and all the work to the party wall was completed end of October, we got their letter asking for a surveyor to come around in November. What he discussed with us wasn’t put in his letter with their demands for compensation etc. we contacted their solicitor over a week ago to say we would pay the damage but will not work with their surveyor. We have finally received a response which I have copied below.
If we do not receive a response from Mr Humphries on your behalf, or if you are unwilling to enter into a Party Wall Agreement, then we will have no alternative but to apply for Court seeking an Order that a Party Wall Agreement is executed in order to record the work carried out to the Party Wall and the parties responsibilities thereon. Please note any costs incurred in such application will be sought from you on the basis of your failing to engage in a settlement agreement as encouraged by the Party Wall Act 1996. We sincerely hope that this will be not be necessary, and we would suggest that you take your own independent legal advice upon your current position.
many advice!
 

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