In this weeks property surveying blog post, we are going to be discussing party wall weatherings and flashing details, and in particular, if a building owner, whom is the person undertaking the works, has the legal right to cut into an adjoining owner who is the person neighbouring the works, structure or wall, or order to weatherproof the junction of the two properties.
The logic behind this is that if they weren’t able to do this, they could effectively find themselves in a position where they are building, and potentially opening themselves up to future construction issues, and damp ingress, that could be very difficult and problematic to solve.
In many cases, adjoining owners will find this concept odd, as they will rightly believe that the wall is indeed theirs, and therefore, no one has legal rights over it. Whilst this is a sound position to take, ultimately, the Party Wall Etc Act 1996 is a facilitating one, and therefore, it has been designed to take this type of scenario into account.
The drawback for a building owner is that they will need to adhere to the party wall procedures, meaning they will need to serve Party Wall Notice in advance of the works commencing, in this case, a minimum of two months, and will ultimately need to go through the party wall procedures that we have discussed in previous blog posts.
If you’d like to discuss your proposed works with our team of experienced and qualified Party Wall Surveyors today, give us a call now and we will be more than happy to assist you.
