Party Wall Act, Beam coming through loft!

jignog

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atrixblue.-MFR-.

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The RSJ to me doesn't appear to be sat on the pad stone there a large gap underneath it? You really need to speak with building control reg inspector and the HA ASAP.

jignog

The housing people were phoned this morning but the person in charge was not available to speak to and will call back when they are.
Half hour ago i heard loud banding in our loft. I went up there to find the builder knocking out the bricks he put in. I shined a torchthrough the hole and asked him who signed the party act paperwork to give permission to put a hole through the wall. He said the party act thing is not legally needed but was a common courtesy thing. I objected and said i rest my case, where was the courtesy? He then stated the RSJ ws allowed to be over by 45mm still not be over the boundary. He said he also rang the housing assoc. this morning but was waiting to hear back. We phoned the housing again and they confirmed he had called but to ld him to hold fire what he was doing. Even still, he intends to proceed and try to put right the beam through his side of the hole.
What can i do to stop him carrying out this work until the housiing people get back to us?
Should i physically stop his hands getting in our loft space?

Fluff15

No, he cannot carry out any works over the centre line of the shared boundary without writing to you first, giving you 14 days notice under s2 of the Party Wall Act. After the 14 days, work can only commence after one month of serving notice.

Call your local authority building control department, tell them works have been going on without your consent to the party wall and you feel it is unsafe. Tell the builder you want him to stop work immediately, he is breaking the law by continuing to work over your boundary and you will not let him continue until works have been inspected by your HA/LA surveyor.

Do not physically touch him, but film him if necessary. Keep calm on your side of the boundary, and tell him you have not consented to these works. Then keep on at your HA.

DRP

Fluff15 wrote: »

No, he cannot carry out any works over the centre line of the shared boundary without writing to you first, giving you 14 days notice under s2 of the Party Wall Act. After the 14 days, work can only commence after one month of serving notice.

Call your local authority building control department, tell them works have been going on without your consent to the party wall and you feel it is unsafe. Tell the builder you want him to stop work immediately, he is breaking the law by continuing to work over your boundary and you will not let him continue until works have been inspected by your HA/LA surveyor.

Do not physically touch him, but film him if necessary. Keep calm on your side of the boundary, and tell him you have not consented to these works. Then keep on at your HA.

The PWA is (to me) a confusing piece of law.

The PWA cannot be applied retrospectively, so if the work has already been done then the PWA doesn't apply? I'd have thought the issue here would be trespass or damage to the property? (this is more a question , rather than advice ).

Fluff15

DRP wrote: »

The PWA is (to me) a confusing piece of law.

The PWA cannot be applied retrospectively, so if the work has already been done then the PWA doesn't apply? I'd have thought the issue here would be trespass or damage to the property? (this is more a question , rather than advice ).

That is correct - in effect, the builder has not followed the PWA which is illegal. However the PWA has no enforcement procedures if it isn't followed. This then becomes a matter of trespass (when the builder is on the OPs boundary), nuisance (the steel beams on the OPs property) and criminal damage as you say, and the courts can issue an injunction to stop the work.

By the sounds of things the builder doesn't really know what he's doing anyway. It's better to call his bluff and convince him to stop now, and get a surveyor(s) in retrospectively before any more damage is done, to draw up an 'award' which both parties are happy with.

NICHOLAS_2

We fitted some steels in a loft last year, we're currently back on the job finishing it off.

We never had to put our steels into the neighbours.. we took the steels one brick into the wall, sat on some steel pads, bricked it and cemented around it.

I originally thought your party wall may be one brick thick but i think it is more likely that the steels were measured wrong

We were working off blue prints put together by an architect, and to my knowledge the owner didn't have to consult with her neighbour.

what you want is the steels out of your loft, it bricked up and cemented around. The steel shouldn't be in your loft.

Also, because it looks like these guys may be a little bit on the hap hazard side, i'd make sure that they stud off the party wall and insulate it to reduce noise pollution. If the space is being lived in you may hear noise if it isn't blocked up and insulated well.

I would think the people in charge of this guy will put it all right for you.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

any updates OP

jignog

Hi,
This is how things have developed so far....
We have phoned the HA several times now and yet we still have no had a reply from them. We were told the lady in charge with those sorts of things was busy with 'appointments'. No further work was carried out on the beam on the day that i questioned their builder. But that very day it was very easy to hear our neighbours being critical of us for questioning him. Apparently, according to them it was perfectly ok for them to smash a hole through the wall as long as they put it right. This was told to every workman that entered their property that day, from gas and boiler man to electrician. They even seemed to agree with the neighbours. I even heard her husband say that 'He didnt have the balls to knock on the door' This obviously made my blood boil hearing it. Their thought process seemed to be this, we dont own the house so why should we care.
Later on that evening the woman neighbour approached the Mother in law outside and stated she wanted to be friends and did want any awkward tension and that they hope for it to be resolved. Upon hearing this i later knocked on their door with the aim of clearing the air and putting my point across. The husband was not hostile like i thought he would be and his wife then came to the door. It was quite amicable, they said they liked us as neighbours and didnt want us to be unhappy. No matter how i tried to put it, i could not get the point accross that the party wall notice had to be in writing and that proceeding to knock a hole through the wall was not 'courteous'. She stood firm and said that just mentioning it to my mother in law was enough to proceed. I did not mention this forum post but it seems that she would think most of this advice on here is wrong. I explaind my concerns that i did want him carrying out the work on our side until the HA were notified of what happened. I stated that i was happy that the HA were now in the loop. Obviously at this point i was dissappointed with the HA as i feel i could have got into a physical altercation trying to safeguard their property and they could not even be bothered to reply to us. I would like to point out that i am not a busy body type of neighbour but i do like to stand up for what i believe in.
We just left it that we were going to leave it in the hands of the HA to sort out and her builder was going to put the work right from their side but we were happy to let him in if the HA said so. I have not looked to see if the work has commenced or finished yet as, because as we are having our own kitchen completely refurbished there is a lot of noise and commotion.
I will keep you all posted once there are any further develpments.

macman

You have already been advised that the people you need to speak to are Building Control-forget the HA, because they are not qualified in any way to decide if the work done is competent or not. From all that you have said it seems likely that they have failed to get Building Regs approval, which is a serious breach, and implies that the builder is either incompetent, a cowboy, or probably both.
The niceties of the PWA are not what should concern you now, since it is too late to do anything about it, and there is no sanction for their breach anyway,unless you get an injunction to stop the work. What matters is whether the new floor is likely to come down, bringing your party wall wall with it.
If you report your concerns about the structural integrity of the work then they'll be around PDQ.