Party wall award problems and stress

RSlack

Good morning,

I have been reading through lots of posts about party wall awards and surveys on here and share lots of people's concerns. I live in a small semi detached house with my family. There is a narrow gap on the other side between properties. We are having a small single story extension built and have had to appoint a surveyor for the neighbour we are attached to and the other side. Our surveyor sent the notices out informing them of the work. This was only after the neighbour changed their mind on the work being done. It was initially agreed in person that the attached neighbour was happy with the work etc and then after they took advice decided they wanted a survey etc (despite my contractor offering to discuss the plans in detail and an independent structural engineer). On the other side is a rental property, lovely tenants but the landlord who we have never met decided to appoint their own surveyor without any discussion with us, despite offering to repair the boundary wall at our own cost as it is looking a bit tired. There has been a huge amount of back and forth between contractors, surveyors, engineers on what is a small development to make a house more sustainable in the long term. I know people have a legal right to a surveyor, but whilst I wait on the final bill (preparing for the worst) I wanted to warn people that this act can be pretty scary and cause a huge amount of anxiety. I intend to write to my MP to try and get some sort of discussion about it. Be careful out there.