Help problems with both neighbours

Doozergirl

fezster wrote: »

Party wall act does not just cover the physical boundary, but can also apply if you are digging foundations which may affect your neighbours foundations. I cant remember the details, but it involves drawing a diagonal line from the bottom of your foundations up to the neighbours building, and depending on distance, may come under the PWA.

The neighbour's house needs to be within 3m an adjacent to the proposed extension. So either already extended or projects further than the OPs house, and the OPs foundations need to be deeper than the neighbours.

Jonesya

Advice?

Put yourself in the other person's shoes, most people don't make trouble for the sake of it but they do get concerned when other people start doing work that could and can damage their property.

Like it or not there is a proper way of going about this work, it can cost you more money but it's the right way of doing things. What was the first impression you gave? From your post it appears you wanted to cut corners and do it on the cheap - no proper notice, no independent oversight - a quick chat and the builders card.

I think you perhaps underestimate the impact and stress that building work can have on affected neighbours. I have a relative, similar situation where the neighbour, like you, probably meant well but cut corners, just used a builder, no proper over-sight by an architect/engineer and they messed up. The relative had rain water getting through her wall and plaster falling off because of the neighbour's incorrectly designed drainage.

If you follow the rules then not only is there no come-back, you also give the impression of being reliable/trust-worthy/professional.

bluep

The party-wall regs are there for a reason - you either have an obligation under the party-wall act or you don't. And if you do, you need to do things properly in terms of notices etc.. As we will do when we have our chimney breasts removed in a few months time.

In all honesty, I'd be pretty miffed if I was your neighbour and you did works then your builder just had a chat with me and said they'd fix anything that went wrong as a consequence. I'd be thinking "this is potentially structural stuff and I have no idea if it has been detrimental to my house..." What if they are thinking of selling at some stage? Now they have to declare this in the legal forms. What if 6 months down the line, something comes up that shows it did affect their house - and your builder says "Sorry mate, no chance of me doing anything about it." - they don't have a contract with him or any guarentee in writing or in fact, any legal comeback to get him to rectify. I'd be pretty concerned if that was me in that situation.

As for your other neighbours - if there isn't a legal obligation under party-wall, and they are just moanbags (which it sounds like they have been in the past)...not much you can do but try and keep the peace. However, maybe the council have written to them as a result of planning permissionor application for building regs stuff? I don't know but again if you had to do somethign under party-wall and didn't... Talking to them about it and letting them know for months that work would be start doesn't absolve you of what you need to do officially. If I were the neighbour, I would be grateful that you had talked through the work, but I would expect you as the person doing the work to research what you had to do officially and give me whatever notices etc...

Sorry, don't mean to be harsh, but the only advice I can give you is to do what you need to do to now to rectify what you should have done in the first place.

beaker141

My neighbours insisted on a party wall notice, I let them suggest which surveyor they wanted, but I did suggest I wanted a local independant one.

From memory it cost me about £700, for him to survey and draw up the award.

I was miffed about it, as its pretty much money for nothing, but they insisted so I had to do it.

By ignoring your first neighbour, you're lucky they didnt go to town with one of the rip off companies.

I think you probably still need it for this second one, there is a 3m and a 6m rule that you might be bound by, and you state there is 2m between the houses - hard to confirm on here without truly understanding the layout.

Why dont you suggest a surveyor and get it done - otherwise you could find them slapping an injunction on you which could really mess up your plans.