Party Wall Act - Extortionate fees and ruins relations with neighbours

mug2007 · 3 May 2021 at 2:02PM

I received a response from the Ministry of housing, to summarise:

you may give your neighbours notice of your intentions covered by the Act. If you give them notice then there is a dispute resolution process.

Where the Act is not used then any dispute is resolved by mediation or arbitration and last resort a civil claim in the county court or high court.

For anyone thinking of sending the notice here are some useful points:

Neighbours who object to planning are more likely to dissent.

Neighbours may renege on agreement at the last minute.

The government explanatory booklet

Paragraph 12 the best way of settling any point of difference is by friendly discussion with your neighbour.

Paragraph 36 says the appointment of an agreed surveyor is preferable for residential circumstances should you not agree or want some assurance the correct procedures are followed.

RICs released a new party walls consumer guide June 2020 which states

"selecting the same surveyor as your neighbour is often considered a neighbourly thing to do" (Page 5) given a surveyor appointed under the Act is under a duty to act impartially.

Until the party wall act is changed so an adjoining owner must choose an agreed surveyor for minor residential works it is understandable that the majority of people are not serving the notice.

When you appoint a party wall surveyor to serve the noitice/s you sign a form to say you will pay the fees if your neighbour/s dissents choosing their own surveyor. A decision that may cost you £1000s for very little.

FaceHead · 3 May 2021 at 5:43PM

Thanks for sharing this response. I agree that the act is a mess, but it's just not a legislative priority, with bigger issues like cladding and a chronic shortage of housing getting in the way.

In the meantime we need to work with the act we have. Given that there is no penalty for not serving notice, playing dumb and not servicing notice is a realistic option.

On these boards, many people appoint a surveyor before even talking to neighbours. That makes the process excessively formal and expensive immediately, and makes the neighbour feel they need a surveyor too.

The MHCLG is quite right that a basic letter and a friendly chat should do the trick in most cases for no cost.

Rdwill · 3 May 2021 at 8:18PM

Rosa_Damascena said:

mug2007 said:

Thank you all for your contributions. I hope some people about to embark on the party wall act find it useful. On a positive note, we have been overall pretty cost efficient, moving out ourselves without a removal company, using every square inch of our self store space, moving into the parents during the works rather than renting somewhere, doing some demolition ourselves and finishing wc/ensuites ourselves. Good luck to everyone, hoping you have a better party wall experience than us!

Thanks @mug2007. I've read the thread and am dreading what lies ahead for me this year

Roughly how much should a PWA cost?

I'm still considering when to send my grievance for the reasons detailed in point 8 below, but I will post my summary here to give you an idea of my experience. (I have many other pages of evidence and transcripts of phone calls.

A summary of Grievances

I realise that the above note is quite a long description of my whole experience of the Party Wall process, so I summarise my main complaints here

1. The inclusion, in the Further Information section, of the Clause regarding the painting of the wall facing the Adjoining Owner’s property should not be in the Party Wall Award.

a. This wall is not part of the Party Wall, it is a wall wholly owned by and on the Building Owner’s property.

b. The decoration of this wall is covered by Planning legislation.

c. The Adjoining Owner has pressurised the Surveyors into including this provision. In doing so, the Surveyors have given the Adjoining Owner the false view that areas away from the Party Wall are covered in the Party Wall Award.

d. In ordering this remediation the Party Wall Surveyors are acting beyond their power, or ultra vires, and thus the clause is unenforceable.

e. The inclusion of this clause calls into question the impartiality of the Surveyors.

f. This clause tries to deal with matters outside of the Act. The inclusion of this clause in the Award could possibly make the whole Award invalid.

2. The date relating to the Service of Notice in the Award is incorrect. We are aware this is a drafting error, however,

a. Considering the amount of effort and emphasis that was placed on ensuring the date on the Notice of Service was the same as the actual date of Service, with the inference that the Service would be invalid if the dates were not correct.

b. The Notice was Served on the 25th January 2021.

c. The Service of Notice date forms part of the recitals of the Award, this error means that the Award is incorrect ‘on the face of it’. This error would leave the Award open to challenge and may deem it to be invalid.

d. This displays a poor checking and proof-reading process.

3. The first two (of three) items in Clause 2 that make up the Works (*third item detailed in point 7 below).

(a) Cutting chases into the party wall to receive pipes and wires.

(b) Fixing Cupboards to the party wall.

should not be included in the Award .

a. The building owner only plans to put up ordinary cabinets and chase in ordinary wires to the Party Wall.

b. There is no foreseeable reason why the work detailed in Clause 2a and b should have consequences on the structural strength and support functions of the Party Wall or cause damage to the adjoining owner’s side.

c. Both properties are well built and in a good state of repair.

d. The surveyors are including and charging for work that is not reasonably necessary to include as well as placing additional stress on the Building Owner.

4. Clause 3 and 4 refer to the works set out / itemised in Clause 1 {sic}, this should read Clause 2. Whilst this is a minor drafting error.

a. These errors make the Award harder to read and understand, particularly for a layperson, who may not be comfortable reading contract documents.

b. Again, this displays a poor checking and proof-reading process.

5. The capitalisation of the defined term ‘Works’ seems to go astray throughout the document. For example – ‘FURTHER INFORMATION - This Award does not apply to any other works that the Building Owner may be conducting. Any works specified in this Award are also subject to the provisions of the Act.’

a. This makes the document problematic for a layperson to understand and facilitates confusion, misinterpretation, and ambiguity in the reader.

b. We would suggest using a different word to works when referring to jobs that are not ‘Works’. Maybe jobs?

c. In our opinion, this displays a poor checking and proof-reading process.

6. It is evident that the contents of the Award had not been explained to the Adjoining Owner either at all or in terms that they understood. This led to the Adjoining Owner taking it upon herself to confront the building staff and have an altercation with one of the Building Owners regarding her (understandable) misinterpretation of the Award.

a. The FPWS Guide to Code of Conduct states that ‘Matters relating to the Act’s procedures should be clearly explained to an appointing owner from the outset, so that the parties have an understanding of what is involved in the process of making an award, and what they can and cannot expect from that process.’

b. The Surveyors should have taken the request by the Adjoining Owner detailed in Clause 1, above, as an opportunity to explain the Party Wall Act and Award to the Adjoining Owner.

c. The Building Owner took it upon himself to explain the contents of the Award and when it applied to the Adjoining Owner, which seemed to appease her, although not satisfy her.

d. The Building Owners’ do not consider it their role to explain the Party Wall Award to the Adjoining Owner and are disappointed that the professional employed to represent the Adjoining Owner had not taken the time to do this, especially considering the amount charged.

7. Without going too far into costs we would like to state that

a. The Award document produced, the lack of explanation to the Adjoining Owner and the general engagement does not correlate with the expectation of the £1,682.26 (£1,232.26 and £450 respectively) that was spent on this Award.

b. The sum charged seems a lot of money for potentially cutting less than 100mm from the external face of the Party Wall to insert some flashing (*the third item in the Award).

(c) Cutting a flashing in to the external brickwork on the outer face of the rear elevation.

c. Is this really the intention of The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, The Faculty of Party Wall Surveyors and The Party Wall Act?

8. Lastly, my final complaint is that I am apprehensive about bringing forward my grievance, not because it is inaccurate or unsubstantiated, but because

a. Your members have portrayed themselves as being prepared to act beyond their remit and powers and make uncertain statements to get their desired outcome.

b. As part of the investigation the surveyors will have to be made aware of our criticism. Even if the FPWS find against them, their ‘quasi-judicial’ role means that they cannot be removed from my project.

c. The whole Award could be found invalid, I suppose only a court could determine that. But where would that leave me? With another bill for c£1.7k and 2 months added to my program?

d. At the time of writing my building work is ongoing and there is still the potential for them to involve themselves in my business. (And I’m not actually sure when my relationship with the surveyors ends).

e. I would prefer to make my complaint once our association has ended in case there are repercussions and vindictiveness.

f. If any of our complaints are found to be upheld, particularly the two involving ‘sharp practise’ as opposed to poor drafting / incompetence. Then we will be stunned that two of your surveyors have been complicit in the above allegations.

g. We wonder if there is any kind of ‘whistle blowing’ policy with regards to one surveyor being concerned about the actions of another?

Good Luck !!!!