Hello and welcome to today’s property surveying blog post, in today’s blog post we are going to be looking at Party Wall procedures, taking a close look at whether you have to pay for a Party Wall Agreement.
What is a Party Wall Agreement?
Firstly, let us take a look at what is a Party Wall Agreement. The Party Wall Agreement or the Party Wall Award is the final aspect of Party Wall Surveying procedures and is a binding agreement between a building owner and an adjoining owner.
The Party Wall Award will outline the rights of the building owner to conduct their planned works and once the Party Wall Award is in place this will give the building owner the right to begin their planned works.
The Party Wall Award will also outline the protections that must be put into place for the adjoining owner‘s property to prevent damage occurring to it from the planned works.
The Party Wall Agreement will also be comprised of the other aspects of Party Wall Surveying procedures such as the inclusion of the Schedule of Condition inspection that would take place on the adjoining owner’s property prior to the planned works commencing.
In accordance with the Party Wall etc Act 1996, it will be the building owner who will be responsible for the cost of the Party Wall Surveying procedures, which includes the Party Wall Agreement.
Although the building owner will not generally pay for a Party Wall Agreement alone, but rather Party Wall Surveyors will generally charge a fixed fee for completing all aspects of the Party Wall Surveying procedures which will include the draft and service of the Party Wall Award.
Whereas in cases where there is Party Wall Surveyor for each party to the matter, then the fee for the adjoining owner is usually broken down to a per hour for their time on the project.
So, in essence means that the building owner would be liable for all the costs that would relate to the Party Wall Surveying procedures and so this would also include the cost to produce and serve the Party Wall Agreement.
Thank you for reading today’s blog post, I hope this has given you further insight into the party wall procedures and Party Wall Agreements.
If you have any questions in relation to today’s blog post or any of the other services that we offer here at Stokemont, then please do not hesitate to get in touch today and one of our experienced surveyors will be happy to assist and advise.
