Thank you for clicking on today’s Party Wall Surveying blog post topic.
Today we are going to be discussing Party Wall Surveying procedures and in particular what a building owner needs to do if their neighbour, the adjoining owner doesn’t respond to the Party Wall Notice that was served upon them.
Through this blog we hope to address this commonly asked question in a simple and easy to follow format.
We hope that you enjoy it!
If you are a building owner who wishes to carry out construction works which is either:
- Works directly to the Party Wall, a Party Structure or a Party Fence Wall.
- Excavations within 3m or 6m of a neighbouring structure.
- Construction of new walls built up to or astride the boundary line.
Then under the Party Wall etc Act 1996, you are required to serve any adjoining owners with a Party Wall Notice at least 1 or 2 months prior to the works commencing.
The Party Wall Notice must include the date in which you intend to start the works and the nature and particulars of the works.
Once you have served the Party Wall Notice the adjoining owner has a 14-day period to respond with one of the following three options:
- Consent to the works
- Dissent and appoint Party Wall Surveyor
- Dissent and appoint Agreed Party Wall Surveyor
However, if the adjoining owner does not respond within the 14-day period then you must provide the adjoining owner with a further notice which gives them a final 10 days to respond.
If at this point, there is still no response they are considered to have dissented to the works and a dispute is deemed to have arisen.
As the building owner you are then able to appoint a Party Wall Surveyor on behalf of the non-responsive adjoining owner.
The Party Wall Act, by its very nature is facilitating Act; therefore, by allowing an appointment to be made on behalf of the adjoining owner it ensures that the process moves forward in a sensible manner, while also ensuring the adjoining owner’s legal rights are fully protected.
Although the building owner may have appointed a Party Wall Surveyor to act on behalf of the adjoining owner, this does not necessarily mean that the Party Wall Surveyor will ever have contact with the unresponsive adjoining owner and therefore may not be able to gain access to complete the schedule of condition inspection and report.
This will mean that the Party Wall Surveyor may have to undertake the schedule of condition by looking solely at the external areas of the adjoining owner’s property, usually from the building owner’s garden.
Once the schedule of condition of the non-responsive adjoining owner’s property has been completed, the Party Wall Surveyor will then draw up the Party Wall Award serve this to the adjoining owner.
The non-responsive adjoining owner will then have a period of fourteen days to appeal to the county court against the award who may then rescind the Award or modify it in such manner as the court thinks fit.
While this may feel as if the adjoining owner’s rights are being overlooked, the Act’s stance on this is that if an adjoining owner didn’t respond, and the building owner wasn’t legally able to appoint the Party Wall Surveyor on their on their behalf, then the Party Wall Surveying procedures would effectively stall.
This would mean that the building owner is unable to progress their works affectively until the adjoining owner has responded.
This would obviously leave the situation whereby a savvy adjoining owner, or an adjoining owner who is anti works, could simply not respond and thereby stop or stall the building owner’s proposed works indefinitely.
The Act’s procedures take this into account and ultimately ensure that even if adjoining owner doesn’t respond. The building owner can follow a simple and straight forward procedure thereby affording them the necessary protection an ultimately progressing to an end result and an agreed Party Wall Award.
Party Wall Surveying procedures while simple in nature, can often become complicated in practise.
There are always a number of moving pieces, such as; the construction works, the owners, the Party Wall Surveyors and a long list of other points to consider.
Here at Stokemont, we would very much advise that you always seek the advice and professional input from an experienced Party Wall Surveyor, this will ensure that you not only have your Party Wall Surveying procedures and proposed works in safe hands, but also that it moves forward in a proactive delay free manner.
If you would like to discuss your proposed Party Wall works with our team of qualified and experienced Party Wall Surveyors, give us a call today and we will be more than happy to assist and advise you.
