In today’s Property Surveying blog post topic we are going to be taking a deeper look at party wall surveying procedures and in particular how a building owner can best handle the party wall procedures.
Party wall procedures are set in place by the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. They require a building owner to serve a Party Wall Notice upon an adjoining owner a minimum of one, or two months in advance of their proposed construction work commencing.
The Party Wall etc. Act 1996’s procedures give the adjoining owner the legal right to dissent to the Party Wall Notice served upon them, if they so choose, to appoint a party wall surveyor to act on their behalf.
Once the party wall surveyor has been appointed, it is that party wall surveyor’s role to administer the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, and ultimately advise the adjoining owners of the most sensible and act befitting manner in which to proceed.
In many cases, building owners can find the requests that follow a Party Wall surveyor’s appointment to be hard to fathom, and in many cases feel as if the adjoining owner is being deliberately awkward or preventive to the overall construction plans.
This isn’t the case, and in many cases our take on it here at Stokemont is that some of the more complex requests that can come through the party wall process are merely in place to ensure that an adjoining owner gets the full protection that the Act intends and affords upon them.
Some of these protections are and include;
Security for Expenses
Under Section 12 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, the adjoining owner has the legal right to request security for expenses.
The official wording of the Act is as follows:
(1) An adjoining owner may serve a notice requiring the building owner before he begins any work in the exercise of the rights conferred by this Act to give such security as may be agreed between the owners or in the event of dispute determined in accordance with section 10.
(2) Where—
(a) in the exercise of the rights conferred by this Act an adjoining owner requires the building owner to carry out any work the expenses of which are to be defrayed in whole or in part by the adjoining owner; or
(b) an adjoining owner serves a notice on the building owner under subsection (1),the building owner may before beginning the work to which the requirement or notice relates serve a notice on the adjoining owner requiring him to give such security as may be agreed between the owners or in the event of dispute determined in accordance with section 10.
(3) If within the period of one month beginning with—
(a) the day on which a notice is served under subsection (2); or
(b) in the event of dispute, the date of the determination by the surveyor or surveyors,the adjoining owner does not comply with the notice or the determination, the requirement or notice by him to which the building owner’s notice under that subsection relates shall cease to have effect.
This effectively means that if the works are of a structural complexity, the adjoining owner has the legal right to request a sum of money which will be held on account for the use in the event that the building owner for whatever reason commences their works, stalls, stops, delays or goes bust in the process.
The adjoining owner would then be able to rely upon that sum of money to safeguard and protect their property against any issue in respect of leaving the works unfinished.
Security for expenses is often seen as a highly problematic request by building owners as they will in many cases find the idea of having to put funds aside as an extremely difficult logic to get around, usually taking some form of offence to it.
It is important to note that in many cases an adjoining owner requesting security is nothing more than them wanting the full protection of the Act afforded to them.
An Advising Engineer
The request for an advising engineer, while isn’t from the adjoining owner, can often be misconstrued to again be a preventive request.
Instead, it is actually the adjoining owner’s surveyor that will make the request for an advising engineer, ultimately to ensure that they have their own design engineer look at the plans from the perspective of their appointing owner’s property, ensuring that the risks associated with the structural element of the work are as low as they can be.
Advising engineers aren’t there to redesign, pick fault, or critique the building owner’s engineer’s design. Instead they are there to ensure that the design is most complimentary and reasonable from the position of the adjoining owner’s property.
It is worth noting that an advising engineer request will inevitably increase the overall cost that a building owner has to pay as ultimately they will be footing the bill. We would therefore advise that advising engineer request are made early so that a building owner is fully aware of them.
Requesting Their Own Party Wall Surveyor
In many cases building owners will often find the idea of an adjoining owner wanting their own party wall surveyor involved to be a surprise.
The way we would best advise a building owner looks at this is effectively by having their own party wall surveyor, the adjoining owner is essentially ensuring that they are fully protected.
Whilst the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 does allow party wall surveyors to act impartially on behalf of both owners, in many cases the adjoining owners can be uncomfortable with this and ultimately just prefer the idea of two sets of eyes looking at the works as opposed to one.
Party wall surveying procedures can be complicated and complex at times. Here at Stokemont we take great pride in the amount of work that we undertake on a yearly basis, in many cases dealing with thousands of party wall surveying matters, not to mention thousands of surveying matters overall. If you would like to discuss party wall surveying procedures with our team of qualified and experienced surveyors here at Stokemont, give us a call today and we will be more than happy to assist and advise.
