Party wall surveyor - letter of appointment

emmam57

Hi there,
My partner and I have signed a letter of appointment from a party wall surveyor but we have found a cheaper surveyor to do the same work, the first company have said that because we signed the letter of appointment they have already started the processes and necessary searches and I am liable to pay for this? Never seen or been sent any terms and conditions by them and they do not have my payment details they also don't even have copy of my drawings or full details of planned works. Not sure where I stand?


Letter of appointment we received -
Re:Party Wall etc. Act 1996: **********
*I/We hereby appoint you as the Building Owners/agreed Surveyor, should a dispute arise, in accordance with the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 in relation to the works proposed at **************
*I/We authorise you to sign, issue, serve, receive and respond to all notices under the Party Wall Etc Act 1996 (“the Act”) relating to the works proposed on my/our behalf.
*I/We further authorise you to make all requests and appointments under the Act on *my/our behalf, which may be necessary to expedite the progress of the matter.
*I/We further appoint you to undertake a Schedule of Condition of the neighbouring properties.
*I/We authorise you to sign, serve and receive Notices, Awards and other communications electronically where appropriate and in accordance with the provisions of The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 (Electronic Communications) Order 2016.


Yours sincerely,

teneighty

You appointed them so you need to pay for the abortive work, ask for a breakdown of costs so far.

Once appointed it is very difficult to disinstruct so you might be stuck with them.

emmam57

I scanned over the signed letter to them on Friday morning and got this response -





Many thanks for the return of the letter of appointment, notices will be served as soon as we receive drawings and once we have made a copy of them we will send them straight back to you, the fee is correct should a dissent arise from result of the notice being served.


Should you have nay further questions then please don't hesitate to contact the office.








I emailed them yesterday saying I did not want to proceed, they called me today in response at 12pm saying I couldn't do this and that they had commenced searches. I asked for proof of this though as the response received above would suggest otherwise?

Annie1960

Once you have signed it will be very difficult to get out of the contract unless they agree.

teneighty

If it is a reputable firm and they only received the instruction on Friday they will probably agree to cancel the agreement.

They could in theory have started working on it so there may be abortive fees but they should be quite modest.

If they are one of the dodgy firms who send out unsolicited letters or who have a glossy website but are in fact not members of or regulated by any of the professional institutions then you may struggle to get out of it and have to face the fact that you are stuck with them or find fault in the instruction letter.