Loft is open to neighbours at one end, should surveyor have told me?

lifeofbrian2015

Someone mentioned to me that regs say houses must be separated, and that the surveyor should have told me that there is no wall separating mine and my neighbours property in the loft space.

Does anyone know more about this?

Keep_pedalling

How old is this house?

user1977

What did the surveyor say about the loft? Did they even go in? If so, could they see the lack of wall, or was the loft full of junk?

Not a big deal anyway.

eddddy

You mention a surveyor - do you mean a surveyor who was instructed by you? Or a valuer instructed by the mortgage lender?

As far as I'm aware, if a mortgage valuer notices there is no dividing wall in a loft, the mortgage lender will generally make it a condition of the mortgage that one is built.

In my case, I had to give an undertaking to my mortgage lender that I would build one within 6 months. But they didn't withhold any money - and they never actually checked that I had done it.


 


Taking a step back, there are 2 main reasons for having a dividing wall between properties in a loft.

• A fire break - to slow down / stop the spread of fire from your neighbour's loft into your loft (and house)

• For security - to stop people from crossing from the neighbour's loft into your loft (and potentially going through your loft hatch into your house)

A timber frame with a double thickness of plasterboard can achieve an acceptable fire break - but somebody with a hammer (or big boots) might be able to make a hole to get through it.

A breeze block wall would be more work, but that would achieve a fire break and better security.



Edit to add...

Your neighbour will get the same benefit as you from building a dividing wall, so I guess you could ask them if they'd like to share the cost.

HelpfulLittleHelper

user1977 said:

Not a big deal anyway.

I'd say it's a pretty big deal? Means that the neighbours can access whatever you store up there AND they can enter your property via the loft. Unlikely for that to happen of course but I wouldn't want a shared loft!

Grizebeck

It's very very common

born_again

lifeofbrian2015 said:

Someone mentioned to me that regs say houses must be separated, and that the surveyor should have told me that there is no wall separating mine and my neighbours property in the loft space.

Does anyone know more about this?

Exactly what type of house is this?

Many terraced houses are open between them.

user1977

HelpfulLittleHelper said:

user1977 said:

Not a big deal anyway.

I'd say it's a pretty big deal? Means that the neighbours can access whatever you store up there AND they can enter your property via the loft. Unlikely for that to happen of course but I wouldn't want a shared loft!

Even if you decided to store valuables in your loft (which itself sounds rather unusual) and you're doubly unlucky to have thieves living next door, do you not think you'd notice when you were up there that there wasn't a party wall?

My point was more that it's easy enough to sort out if you were really bothered by it.

theartfullodger

What exactly did you ask surveyor to do regarding any loft? Can't read it from here.

kingstreet

When I was a kid we lived at the end of a row of four and could go from 2 - 4 - 6 - 8 and back again. There was nothing in the lofts and curiosity was completely sated after one visit.

LHW99

We had this in a semi- many years ago, but we had the only loft access. Can the neighbour actually get into the loft from their side?