Hello, and welcome to today’s property surveying blog post, into today’s blog post I am going to look into Party Wall Surveying matters and attempt to give you an overview of Party Wall Surveying procedures.
Party Wall Notice
The first aspect of Party Wall Procedures is the Party Wall Notice.
The Party Wall Notice is essentially a letter that will be sent to any adjoining owners that could be affected by your planned works that fall under sections 1,2 and 6 of the Party Wall etc Act 1996.
Section 1
Construction of new walls on or astride the line of junction.
Section 2
Works along the party wall include cutting into or exposing the party wall.
Section 6
Excavation with 3/6m of a property. This depends on the depth of the proposed foundations. If they go below the adjoining owners’ foundations then this would trigger the Party Wall etc Act 1996 and thus Party Wall Surveying procedures.
The Party Wall Notice should give an overview of the planned work that you wish to carry out along with details of the building owner/their Party Wall Surveyor and generally will be accompanied by a drawing which is mandatory for any planned work that falls under section 6.
Party Wall Notice Timings
The Party Wall Notice will also come with certain time periods attached to them, for when they must be served before the planned works are going to take place and how long the adjoining owner will have to respond to the Party Wall Notice.
For any planned works that fall under sections 1 & 6 of the Act, this would require you to serve a Party Wall Notice 1 month before the planned works are going to take place, whereas for works that fall under section 2 will require a 2 month Notice to be served.
Schedule of Condition
Once the Party Wall Notice has been served then the next point of protocol is to undertake a Schedule of Condition survey or SOC.
The SOC is not a mandatory requirement under the Party Wall etc Act 1996 but has become widely adopted as a standard within the industry.
During the schedule of condition, inspection will see the Party Wall Surveyor inspect all elements of the adjoining owner’s property that could be affected by the planned works and will be accompanied by hundreds if not thousands of photographs, to ensure that there is a thorough record of the condition of the adjoining owner’s property before the planned works have commenced.
so if there has been any damage that has been caused by the planned works then there will be evidence of this in place.
Party Wall Award
The final aspect of the Party Wall Surveying procedures is the Party Wall Award, which will give the building owner the right for them to conduct their planned works while also putting into place protections for the adjoining owner’s property to best protect them from the planned works.
Those protections could be something as simple as covering up an exposed chimney best or vent to prevent dust and debris from entering into the adjoining owner’s property or the use of hit and miss bays when it comes to excavating for foundations.
Once the Party Wall Award has been served on to the respective owner either is able to contest the Award up to 14 days from recite of it, but this does not mean that the building owner needs to halt their works while the Party Wall Award is being contested.
Post Works Inspection
This again is not a mandatory requirement of party wall procedures and like the SOC is an adopted part of Party Wall Procedures, which will see the Party Wall Surveyor reinspect the adjoining owner’s property after the works have been completed, in which they would cross-reference the initial SOC that was done to see if the planned works have actually caused damage so the building owner could be held liable.
I hope this gave you further insight into Party Wall Surveying matters and procedures.
if you have any further questions in regards 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 by either popping us over an email or giving us a call and one of our team of experienced Party Wall Surveyors will be happy to assist and advise you.
