Buying a house, both neighbours have extensions that cross the party wall

Bark01

I amended my first post based on a convo with the solicitor

They said 'we can request the seller puts a party wall indemnity policy in place on completion which can cover you should anyone wish to enforce legal action.

 Both the party wall agreement and indemnity policy can be passed over to any new owners.'

And yes my Surveyor is a very negative but better that than miss something

sheramber

What enforcement does he envisage since it is your property that has been encroached on. Who would be taking enforcement action against you?

ThisIsWeird

I, personally, wouldn't be concerned at all about the loss of an inch of land from either side. 

Even tho' - being a terrace - it is usually easy to be very accurate about where the exact boundary runs (unlike with most detached properties), if you had to rely on, say, deeds maps, few would have a realistic expectation of being able to determine the exact line to within an inch. In practice, how many existing boundary markers are accurate to within an inch - throughout their whole length? Every fence post is just touching the exact boundary line from house all the way down to the bottom of the garden? Every shrub and bush?!

So, that wee 'loss' would not bother me. In practice, it means now't. Unless to a concerned next buyer, I guess.

What would concern me would be my right to use these walls as 'party' walls, should I wish to build my own extension, or even construct a full-width pergola. So, indemnity policies R us.

Sistergold

silvercar said:

People do get wound up by small things. Previous house the neighbours had window sills at the side of their property that protuded into our airspace by an inch or two, similarly our satellite dish had a small sector that went into their airspace. Neither of us cared.

In your case, the advantage of a wall you could build from surely outweighs their building on the party wall. If they hadn't have done so, you still would have had the wall there but without their extension linked to it - so what difference does it make?

When the OP wants to do an extension what if the neighbours don’t cooperate or allow him to use their two walls? Or is it that the neighbours are legally required to allow the OP to build using these walls? 

MeteredOut

Sistergold said:

silvercar said:

People do get wound up by small things. Previous house the neighbours had window sills at the side of their property that protuded into our airspace by an inch or two, similarly our satellite dish had a small sector that went into their airspace. Neither of us cared.

In your case, the advantage of a wall you could build from surely outweighs their building on the party wall. If they hadn't have done so, you still would have had the wall there but without their extension linked to it - so what difference does it make?

When the OP wants to do an extension what if the neighbours don’t cooperate or allow him to use their two walls? Or is it that the neighbours are legally required to allow the OP to build using these walls? 

With a party wall agreement, the neighbours cannot ultimately refuse. But, they can make life difficult and costly... And this would potentially require two PWAs. In theory, the neighbours could ensure that the OP has to use two different surveyors, one for each PWA, meaning no economy of scale benefits.