Party (fire) wall in terrace loft

Hovi

I live in a Victorian mid terrace property and have recently added an access hatch to the loft, as the old hatch was too small to get through. Our adjoining neighbours have also fitted a loft hatch and it has become apparent that there is no wall separating the two sides of the loft. For a security and safety point of view, we would like to put up a simple partition wall which the neighbours originally said they would pay half for. However, they are now saying that at one end, the wall would prevent them from accessing the roof or ceiling of the room below due to a lack of space caused by the angle of the roof. He said that if he did need to access this area, he would need to come onto my side of the loft. He said he also doesn't want any weight in the loft in case it causes the new plaster ceilings to crack, therefore we can't put the partition wall up. Can someone please advise where I stand on this? We would really like to be able to use our loft for storage and so would want the partition wall, especially as the adjoining house is to be let out. Can we put the wall up on our side of the loft without his permission? Can he legally prevent us from doing it?

Tyler119

What sort of wall are you wanting to put up? It certainly is a fire hazard and if you sold the property the surveyor would certainly flag this up.

I would certainly want to speak to my insurance company to see what would happen if a fire spread from the other side to yours, via the loft space.

Also perhaps speak to the council about what regulation any wall would need to adhere to.

While the neighbour does not want to pay for half, he certainly cannot stop you putting up a stud wall that reaches the performance needed for building regulations. Again speaking to the council they will fill you in and in general give out great advice.

It is also not unknown for burglars to gain access to one house and check the loft for shared access to the next house.

G_M

You can do what you want in your own loft. So provided the wall is fully on your side, you're fine.

If you want to put the wall right on the boundaryline, you'll need agreement, and probobly a Party Wall Agreement. I suspect you could get a court order forcing your neighbour to accept the wall but this would be costly and time-consuming, plus destroy any neighbourly relationship.

The best solution is some sort of compromise. Quoting both the fire risk, and security (given that tenants will be living next door) is reasonable. Is there not a way to alleviate his access concerns, and thus reach agreement?

D_M_E

Years ago I tried buying the end property of a Victorian terrace - a row of 8 properties and not a single one had a dividing wall/partition in the loft.

This was picked up by the surveyor and the mortgage company refused to lend, citing fire risk and the potential for both burglaries and the possibility of anyone in the terrace being able to gain access.

I had to pull out of the purchase and find something else, but it ended up that each property in that terrace had to erect some sort of barrier/wall/partition to make each property inaccessible to the others.

You need to come to an amicable agreement with your neighbour and he needs to restrict his own access to his own side of the boundary - he should not need to enter your roof space in order to make use of his premises.

As long as none of your property extends over his then you should be fine erecting a partition on your side but an amicable agreement is better than just doing it and ending up with a complaining neighbour.

paddy's_mum

Saunter down his stairs one evening, sit in his lounge in your pyjamas and watch his tv.....:D

Do you think that he might then not be quite so keen on this version of open plan?

Doozergirl

Your neighbour should not have permission to come over onto your property within the loft. It is unreasonable for him to expect that!

This is incredibly common and the solution is to brick up the party wall. It is common sense.

Wanting to get to something once in a blue moon should never take priority over protecting his own house in the event that yours catches fire.

Go stomping over his side of the loft on a regular basis and see how he likes it

Cakeguts

I don't understand the bit about him not being able to get to his ceiling? If you build a fire wall on top of the wall dividing your house from his it wouldn't go anywhere near his ceiling because it would be built on top of another wall. We bought a mid terrace where we built fire wall on both sides of the loft in order to protect our house and the neighbours' houses from the chance of fire going through the loft space. We asked the neighbours for permission explained what it was we were going to do and then did it without charging the neighbours. A partition wall isn't going to be enough it needs to be a proper fire wall. You need to find out if your neighbour understands what a fire wall is for.

davidmcn

Cakeguts wrote: »

I don't understand the bit about him not being able to get to his ceiling?

No, neither do I, unless there's something weird about the roof shape or layout. Surely it would be no more troublesome than a gable end wall?

Mayflower10cat

We discovered our neighbours had had a firewall built with the agreement of the previous owner - but nicked a few feet off her loft as she never went up there, she had no idea.

martindow

Mayflower10cat wrote: »

We discovered our neighbours had had a firewall built with the agreement of the previous owner - but nicked a few feet off her loft as she never went up there, she had no idea.

This sounds like a studwork partition so neighbours couldn't walk into the loft rather than a firewall. To be a firewall it needs to be built of brick and directly over the party wall.

OP, you need to act carefully here as if you annoy your neighbour they can insist on a party wall surveyor (which you will have to pay for). If it escalates into a dispute this would have to be declared if and when you sell.

Can you understand the positioning of your neighbour's loft hatch and why they feel the need to come to your side? Maybe you could come to some arrangement about how to change the hatch or the ladder to it so that the wall would not be a problem.