Hello and welcome to today’s installment of our informative property surveying blog post. In today’s blog post we are going to be discussing Party Wall Surveying matters more specifically we are going to be taking a look at whether you can prepare your own Party Wall Award.
What is a Party Wall Award?
Firstly let us look at what is a Party Wall Award, this is essentially the final piece of the puzzle when it comes to Party Wall Surveying procedures and is a binding agreement between a building owner and any adjoining owner.
The Party Wall Award will give the ability for the building owner to commence with their planned works once they are in recite of it and will also outline protections that will need to be incorporated into the works or in the manner works might be carried out to ensure the risk to the neighboring property/s is reduced.
An example of this can be seen in cases where proposed work involves excavations for foundations like whenever an extension is taking place.
In cases like this, the award may have restrictions in the way that the excavations will have to be carried out, such as the use of hit-and-miss bays when excavating close to another owner’s property to limit any subsidence.
Can I prepare my own Party Wall Award?
In short no you can not prepare your own Party Wall Award as the Party Wall Award must be prepared by the appointed Party Wall Surveyor/s who are overseeing the Party Wall Surveying procedures and as outlined within the Party Wall etc Act 1996 section 10 a surveyor is any person not being party to the matter.
This is the case as there would be an oblivious bias when acting as the Party Wall Surveyor on your own planned works, as you can not act as your own surveyor and it must be a Party Wall Surveyor/s who drafts and serves the Party Wall Award you can therefore not prepare your own Party Wall Award.
You can however ask your surveyor and request certain points be added to the Award your Party Wall Surveyor may be able to be accommodated the request as long as it does not go beyond the scope of the Party Wall etc Act 1996.
What to do if you want to add to or change a Party Wall Award?
You do have the ability to contest a Party Wall Award for up to 14 days the Party Wall Award has been served.
This will have to be done through the courts where the award is capable of being modified or rescinded although it is down to the discretion of the judge on how the award will be modified. So by using this route it is not guaranteed that you will get the changes that you wish for.
Also, it is worth noting that the Party Wall Awards are only likely to be modified or rescinded if the judge feels that the surveyor/s who proceed over the matter have acted beyond their power or if there has been a procedural mistake. So there is even a possibility that a judge may not even consider any of your points as long as the Party Wall Surveyor/s have acted according to the Party Wall etc Act 1996.
I hope this gives you further insight into the Party Wall Surveying procedures and into Party Wall Awards.
If you have any further questions in relation to party wall surveying matters or any of the other surveying services that we offer here at Stokemont, please do not hesitate to get in touch today by either giving us a call or alternatively popping us over an email and one of our team of experienced Surveyors will be happy to assist and advise you.
