Party Wall Act Reform - Please sign my petition

TSaville

Hello all. I recently started a petition (I can't post links, but search "Party Wall Reform") because of an awful personal experience which resulted in having to pay for two party wall surveyors for what were simple works to our house. This, despite the recent court decision which made very clear that a building owner should not be forced to pay for two sets of surveyors. Unfortunately the decision is being widely ignored by party wall surveyors, for the obvious reason it limits their ability to extract unnecessary fees from householders. 

To quote the relevant passage: 
"The Appellant was prepared to accept the Respondents’ choice of surveyor to act as Agreed Surveyor. The Respondents could be assured that their interests would be looked after by Mr Godwin acting as agreed surveyor as adjoining owner appointed surveyor. There can be no obvious reason for the Respondents to insist that Mr Godwin acted only as their party wall surveyor with the inevitable consequence that the Appellant had to incur the cost of a second party wall surveyor, and they offered none. The Respondents felt entitled to insist on the “two-surveyor route” but not, in my judgment, on the basis that the Appellant had to pay all the additional costs."

What makes the situation worse is the legislative authority vested in appointed surveyors, which means their decisions can only be challenged via the county courts; a prohibitively expensive route for all small, and simple works that the majority of householders should be entitled to carry out. The result is that surveyors can really do as they wish, with very little chance of recourse. This is true even if they are RICS charter holders; RICS simply do not get involved in party wall issues. 

I cannot think of a single profession where members can act with such impunity. It needs to change. 

I know my petition has a very small amount of signatures, put please support it. At the very least it will help me to force RICS to provide some guidance on this issue, and save others from such unnecessary expense as we have been subjected to. 

grumbler

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/549730

welshmoneylover

If my neighbour was doing works I would expect to have my own independent party wall surveyor; needless to say I wouldn’t be willing to pay the costs either.

DevilDamo

All I can say is good luck in changing something that was made law 25 years ago.

mug2007

Interesting, in a case at the county court in central London (Amir-Siddique v Kowaliw May 2018) a judge stated that it was unreasonable for the adjoining owner to insist on the two-surveyor route. The building owner wanted to minimise the costs and use the neighbours choice of surveyor as the agreed surveyor.  The judge concluded both interests could essentially be met by using the agreed surveyor and the cost of two surveyors should not be paid for wholly by the building owner.

This court case highlights the need to reform the party wall act in order to minimise costs and disputes.

Newuser1987

This is quite interesting for me being a Party Wall Surveyor.
I am actually an architect by trade but assist my clients as their Party Wall Surveyor when required. It is with out doubt the whole process is frustrating and even avoidable. What neighbours and owners do not often realise is that even when serving a party wall notice they are then protected by the Party Wall Act. Yet neighbours believe they must dissent to be protected.