Party wall Act - No Notice 31 January at 2:38PM in In my home (includes DIY) MoneySaving 6 replies 485 views

traceyreeves

I am planning to extend my house.
have seen lot of articles on recent high court judgement "No notice.. No act" .
This award itself going to cost me fortune and time as We have very difficult neighbour. This is going to be money printing scheme for PW surveyors.
Would like to know any body have done similar thing.Is this worth to take this route?
what are the other things i should consider to minimise my risk apart from legal cost and damages which i need to be careful regardless of PW award?

jonnydeppiwish!

Just get a PWA done - it could save you a lot of money and time in the long run.

macman

If you commence the work without serving a PWA and the neighbour seeks an injunction, then you face substantial legal costs, and possibly extra costs from your builder.
Since you have studied the PWA, you must have known from the start that you would have to bear the costs of your neighbour possibly appointing a PW surveyor once you serve notice, so you will surely have budgeted for this?

grumbler

traceyreeves said:

This is going to be money printing scheme for PW surveyors.

To halve this suggest your neighbour to appoint a joint surveyor at your expense.

Doozergirl

macman said:

If you commence the work without serving a PWA and the neighbour seeks an injunction, then you face substantial legal costs, and possibly extra costs from your builder.
Since you have studied the PWA, you must have known from the start that you would have to bear the costs of your neighbour possibly appointing a PW surveyor once you serve notice, so you will surely have budgeted for this?

Have a google of "no notice no act". 

I'm paraphrasing heavily from what I've read today, but there's a court ruling that the PWA doesn't apply if notice wasn't served, so the neighbour can't use a PWS and automatically claim costs that way.  You both end up down a civil route if things turn nasty.  

If you go with that then you won't have up front costs of a PWS but it doesn't end your liability to the neighbour's property. 

OP, what are you doing and where does the act apply to it? 

traceyreeves

Doozergirl said:

macman said:

If you commence the work without serving a PWA and the neighbour seeks an injunction, then you face substantial legal costs, and possibly extra costs from your builder.
Since you have studied the PWA, you must have known from the start that you would have to bear the costs of your neighbour possibly appointing a PW surveyor once you serve notice, so you will surely have budgeted for this?

Have a google of "no notice no act". 

I'm paraphrasing heavily from what I've read today, but there's a court ruling that the PWA doesn't apply if notice wasn't served, so the neighbour can't use a PWS and automatically claim costs that way.  You both end up down a civil route if things turn nasty.  

If you go with that then you won't have up front costs of a PWS but it doesn't end your liability to the neighbour's property. 

OP, what are you doing and where does the act apply to it? 

I am doing excavations under 3m so will need s6.

MrsStepford

grumbler said:

traceyreeves said:

This is going to be money printing scheme for PW surveyors.

To halve this suggest your neighbour to appoint a joint surveyor at your expense.

Neighbour gave us notice of a loft conversion. He wanted us to just agree and pay half of the cost of his surveyor. Husband told him no, demanded a copy of the plans and got a surveyor he uses at work to look the plans over for us at zero cost. The neighbour tried to say that his falling-down boundary wall was ours and demanded that we pay half for the wall and new fence on top. Luckily, as we had problem neighbours before, we had plenty of evidence with photos, old OS maps, council plans  which showed that the boundary was his. 

If you're the miscreant not givng notice could rebound on you, as if anything goes wrong, you will have to rectify damage.