Today, through our Property Surveying blogpost, we are going to be looking at party wall surveying procedures, and in particular whether building owners should consider the service of their own Party Wall Notices.
Under Section 1, 2, or 6 of the Party Wall etc Act 1996, a building owner is legally required to serve a Party Wall Notice upon their neighbouring, adjoining owner a minimum of one, or two months in advance of commencing their proposed construction works.
In many cases, building owners will take a simplistic view of the party wall procedures, and attempt to serve their own Party Wall Notices.
Legally speaking, there is no issue or invalidity claim in a building owner serving their own Party Wall Notice, however, here at Stokemont we do tend to find it can sometimes lead to a negative Party Wall Notice response.
We therefore thought we would take a closer look at the procedures surrounding Party Wall Notice service, and offer some handy tips for building owners who are considering on serving these themselves.
Party Wall procedures are often an unknown factor that goes into a building owner’s legal requirements in the course of their construction project. Just as building owners may often be unaware of these scenarios, so may the adjoining owner.
As an adjoining owner, to find out that your neighbour is going to be undertaking construction work that pose a risk to your property can often be a daunting and worrying time.
In many cases, it could be that the Party Wall Notice service is actually the first time that the adjoining owners are made aware of the works, and therefore it is an all-important stage within the construction works to ensure that the package of information and vessel in which the adjoining owners are notified of the building owner’s proposed works is as robust and clear as possible.
Here at Stokemont, we take a very careful approach to our Party Wall Notices, and ensure that we deviate away from the industry legalistic language, and instead use simply-phrased letters, notices and construction work descriptions.
We find that this not only avoids unnecessary concern and worry to the adjoining owner, but in all honesty also helps them best understand the party wall procedures as a whole, what it is the building owner is actually doing in terms of construction works, and finally what a party wall surveyor can or cannot do through the Party Wall Surveying Procedures.
This careful approach, we find, bodes way for a positive Party Wall Notice response. Here at Stokemont, we would classify a positive Party Wall Notice response as either a Party Wall Notice Consent, or an Agreed Party Wall Surveyor Appointment.
We have other blog posts that focus on what exactly the various Party Wall Notice responses are, which we would very much advise that you take a read of. In this blog post we are going to be focussing on the topic at hand, and therefore will not be delving into the specifics of each applicable Party Wall Notice response option.
Building owners will often take the view that Party Wall Notices can be served by themselves, their contractor, or even their architect, and will therefore be reluctant to engage and instruct a separate party wall surveyor to prepare and serve these upon the adjoining owner.
Our take on it, here at Stokemont, is that a good party wall surveyor will be able to advise the adjoining owner of the works in such a manner that does not raise concern. Furthermore, they should also be able to offer the adjoining owner the necessary comfort and piece of mind, should the adjoining owner contact the party wall surveyor post Party Wall Notice service.
While it is perfectly valid and legally acceptable for building owners to serve their own Party Wall Notices, in many cases they can be incredibly basic, standard Internet templates and even legally invalid in some cases. This method of service also does not give the adjoining owner any point of contact to contact should they wish to discuss the Party Wall Surveying procedures, and therefore it is likely that they are going to speak to party wall surveyors in any event anyway.
Realistically, once an adjoining owner has made contact with party wall surveyors, it is likely that they are going to proceed with some form of party wall surveyor appointment, which would ultimately lead to a Party Wall Notice dissent, and the appointment of one, or two party wall surveyors on behalf of the building owner and adjoining owner.
It is worth noting, that here at Stokemont we do have free Party Wall Notices available for building owners to complete, download and serve. We have also very carefully designed our Party Wall Notices to ensure that they are not only simple, but also have QR codes and links back to our website, whereby there is concise and simply-worded information available for adjoining owners to peruse upon receiving the Party Wall Notice.
We would tend to only encourage that these Notices be served in instances where the adjoining owner has a previous understanding with the Party Wall procedures, perhaps they have previously been a party to Party Wall Notices or Party Wall Awards.
If you Party Wall Notices, and how we can be of assistance to you with preparing and serving these, give our team of experienced and qualified Party Wall Surveyors a call today, and we would be more than happy to assist and advise you.
