party wall agreements

panchenlama

sorry for my spelling/typos. fat hands and small keyboard...

SarahSD

I'm just having a single story extension built to the rear of my property. Architects and builders advised me that best way to go would be to take down neighbouring wall and build onto it.

I got verbal consent from the neighbour who was more than happy for the work to be done and to have a new wall put up in place of the falling to bits one.

Just found out that my 80 year old neighbour who has lived in her house for 60 years is a tennant and not the owner! She didn't pass on any info/planning permission details to managing agent.

Now 5 weeks into the work I've received a letter saying that I have to halt the work and appoint a surveyor and pay for neighbours surveyor. HELP!!!!! Surely some responsibility lies with the tennant, but all the cost looks like it's going to fall to me. Does anyone have any experience like this?

kmmr

I am sure there are experts around on this, but I think the lack of written agreement and a party wall notification may be a problem. If you had evidence that the tenant gave approval claiming she was the owner (ie - in writing in response to the PW notification) then you could perhaps claim she was misrepresenting herself... but in the absence of this I don't know what the situation would be.

I'd not overly panic though. In my case for the PW everything started very formally,but once I spoke to the agents acting for the neighbours they were just as keen as me to make sure everything went smoothly. However, it will take a bit of time - at least a few weeks I would say.

macman

SarahSD wrote: »

I'm just having a single story extension built to the rear of my property. Architects and builders advised me that best way to go would be to take down neighbouring wall and build onto it.

I got verbal consent from the neighbour who was more than happy for the work to be done and to have a new wall put up in place of the falling to bits one.

Just found out that my 80 year old neighbour who has lived in her house for 60 years is a tennant and not the owner! She didn't pass on any info/planning permission details to managing agent.

Now 5 weeks into the work I've received a letter saying that I have to halt the work and appoint a surveyor and pay for neighbours surveyor. HELP!!!!! Surely some responsibility lies with the tennant, but all the cost looks like it's going to fall to me. Does anyone have any experience like this?

If you failed to get a PWA issued (or even written consent) then it is not surprising that they have taken this action, and yes, you would have to bear the costs.
Her verbal OK was inadequate-did you ask her if she had the authority to give such consent?
The point of a PWA is to protect both parties against the consequences of damage occurring beyond the work that is being carried out.
Who owns the wall that you have demolished-is it in fact a party wall?

zippyj

We're just about to have part of a chimney breast removed from our house.

One of the two downstairs (the one directly below the breast upstairs) was removed years ago, with no planning permission/regs etc. No idea when it was done, but it's estimated to be at least 20 years ago. However, it doesn't look like anything is actually holding up the one above it, other than fairy dust.

We've had a structural engineer around today to look at what sort of beam we would need to hold the brickwork in the loft and above the roof line, and I asked him about building regs and party wall. He said that we would need building regs, and the calculations he provides would be enough, but that we wouldn't need a party wall agreement as what he was doing wouldn't touch it.

Now, I don't know for certain, but as the chimney breast runs up the 'party wall' and that as the chimney breast upstairs also runs up the same wall (it's a shared stack), wouldn't we need one? He's adamant we wouldn't, but I'm not so sure.

We get on well with next door, but that doesn't mean to say that they wouldn't want a PWA if they were entitled to one. Would obviously prefer to avoid one though.

Final question, the couple next door are very old. When they inevitably move, if the new owners found out that it didn't have a party wall agreement (and assuming that it would here), could they still cause issues? Pass any costs on to us? etc. etc. And if the work did cause any damage, is that me out of pocket or the builder that did the work?

zippyj

I should add that the beam will be from the remainder of the chimney breast out on to my outside wall (either front or back), not in to the party wall. So that may be where he thinks we don't need one, as we won't be putting load on the party wall with the beam.

iamcornholio

Removal of the breast is cutting away of the party wall and so is notifiable.

The PWA is not retrospective, so there is no comeback in the future if it is not used

Edit

Whether the PWA is used or not, you are responsible for any damage. If some occurs you pay, but then if you can prove your builder or engineer was negligent, then you counter-claim against them

keystone

What he ^^^ said and a new thread would have been a better bet.

Cheers

resting-raver

Hi, i have got a slightly different party wall problem, can anyone help with any info, my neighbours (council tenants) have just been given planning permission for an extension, but this means demolishing their concrete sheds/outbuildings with a reinforced concrete roof which are joined to my outbuildings across the boundary line (all walls are single skin brick) The shed roof even butts into my main house wall, i objected to the extension and dont want them touching my property, how do i stand, can they force me and if so can i get compensation if they do