Party Wall Agreement needed?

Minifreak2000

I live in a semi-detached house, and a couple of years ago, my neighbour had a conservatory built on the back of his house. Part of the works, was to build a new wall between our 2 properties, along the boundary line. I agreed to the works at the time and even paid half towards the wall, as we thought we might also extend.

I have no issue with the wall, and get on very well with my neighbour (lucky me). Our neighbours are now looking to move, and I was wondering if we need to do anything from a legal point of view with regards to the party wall?

Doozergirl

The party wall agreement is only in place for the build. You don't need anything now and you did the right thing back then as if you did build off it, you'd owe them half.

teneighty

You say the wall was built "along the boundary" and you paid half the cost of the wall so I assume the wall was built astride the boundary with the boundary line running down the centre of the new wall.

Technically you should have had a party wall agreement drawn up at the time to give your consent to the wall being built astride the boundary and your agreement on costs. However it is not the end of the world that you didn't as by being built astride the boundary the wall is by default a party wall now anyway.

You just have to keep your fingers crossed that the new neighbour will be friendly and agree with you where the boundary line actually is.

By the way, you shouldn't have paid for half the cost of the wall. It is normal practice for that payment to be deferred until such time as you actually build on your side and connect to the party wall. And often the payment is deferred permanently as a gesture of good will by the neighbour who gets a slightly wider extension.