Neighbours dodgy wall

Mistral001

m0t said:

The driveway is only a little over 2 metres wide on our side, too narrow to get a vehicle down and the builder is putting everything as close to our house wall as possible but the existing drain is slightly off centre and closer to the boundary and will need to be dug up and this is the concern.

I would also like the whole wall replaced but don't have space in my budget to contribute to it now. It's likely to be really expensive and I do wonder if the neighbour is seeing this as a way out of a costly repair on their side. Based on the deterioration over the winter I can't believe it will last another.

It could be that he wants a new wall, but his view could be that he just does not want his wall to be at risk of collapse as a result of the work that you are doing at the drive. 

If your builder damages the wall, he will be responsible for that damage. He might be able to ensure that no harm comes to this fragile wall, by the use of temporary propping or even underpinning to make the foundations deeper and out of the zone of influence of the excavations for the pipe.  This of course will be expensive, but if he thinks that is what is required to ensure that the wall can be protected, then he has to do it or refuse the work.  You of course will have to pay for any protection measures to the wall.  It is possible that it would be cheaper to build a new wall than to provide the necessary protection measures to the existing wall.  You could ask the neighbour to contribute to the cost of this, but there is no law that compels him to do so.        

welshmoneylover

Would the part wall act come in here especially if it’s the digging that may force any collapse?

warwick2001

This is remarkably similar to a situation I was in when I moved into my house. The neighbour had built the wall themselves (about 15 years previous), it was a single skin concrete 'breeze' block construction with no support at all. You could easily rock the entire wall with no effort. I asked numerous times for the neighbour to re-build it, I even offered to pay. She always refused. And then, rather fortunately, we had the really strong winds of 2015, and down it came, very predictably. Had her grandkids been playing next to it when it happened, chances are she wouldn't have grandkids. After this rather sobering event, she popped round and asked if I was still willing to pay. I almost fell off my chair!! 

Needless to say, I thought long and hard about even contributing to cost of the new wall, and it was only the gentle guidance of my wife that we decided to contribute, as we would actually benefit from having the nicer, well built wall. So OP, I can see exactly your dilemma. My advice, offer to pay half, and hopefully it would get your problem resolved. I know you feel its none of your responsibility, and this is one of those times where, in law, its an oddity. If it falls over through poor quality/disrepair, they pay, but it you touch it, you pay (even tho poor quality/disrepair still present). But the fact is this is holding your build back, and has the potential to add years to the delay. Essentially, if you don't contribute, you are waiting for Mother Nature to do her thing, which could be years.....