Party Wall knocked down and rebuilt without written notice? Compensation?

Tetsugaku-San

Hello everyone - I'm new here but I hope you can help.

At the beginning of October, work started on the terraced house adjoining my mothers. The house had been bought in a very dilapidated state and had to be completely renovated.

One part of the renovations was to knock down the party wall between the two houses and extend the kitchen of the next door house by around 1.5 metres (width).

The new wall has now been put up, it replaced a 1.8 metre wall with a 2.5 metre wall. Scaffolding had to be put up in my mothers garden, completely covering the side alleyway (where the party wall is / was). The scaffolding is still there now.

No formal notice was ever given for any of this work, specifically not the work on the party wall. I am also fairly certain that the wall has been built far higher than the plans state. No planning notice went up in the street.

At the time my mother was just about to go into hospital to have a malignant tumour removed, and unfortunately our attention was elsewhere. Now however she has become exasperated with a complete lack of contact from the owners next door.

Her specific grievences are:

1. Plants have been irrevocably damaged as they have had no light for five months.
2. An engineer had to be called last weekend as the flue had become blocked in some way due to debris falling from scaffolding / workers
3. The wall was knocked down and rebuilt without any notice to her other than one day verbal notice.
4. The wall appears to be higher than it should be.
5. She has had no light to the rear of the ground floor of the house for 5 months due to the scaffolding.

If anyone could help explain to me the legal situation I would really appreciate it - obviously she doesn't want to fall out with the neighbours but she has been feeling ignored and patronised by the new owners. She has lived in the house for 27 years and yesterday she even said she doesn't feel like living there any more which I heard with a heavy heart.

Thanks so much for your time

Miles

Doozergirl

Does this new wall form part of the kitchen extension? How tall is it? This is around planning and not around the party wall act.

Have they finished work now? There's no enforcement procedure for their failing to give your mother notice of the works so if it's still ongoing she'd have to get legal representation to get them to stop and then agree on the work. If they've finished, there's not going to be a lot of point.

The neighbour should pay to put your mum's garden back the way it was. I'd always try to be nice and point out that she has been accommodating, allowed all this to go on with no complaint but they can they please put things back the way they were, including the plants that have died.

olias

If it's a party wall issue then if the neighbour had gone through the right channels, your mother would have had the right to appoint an independant surveyor at the neighbours expense in addition to the neighbours own.

I have know this happen and it cost the neighbour doing the building work about £1000. Might be worthwhile knowing when you try and negotiate with the neighbour for some sort of reparation

Olias