Welcome to the latest instalment of Stokemont’s blog series. The focus of today’s post will be on the party wall procedures.
In particular, the response timings available to an adjoining owner who has been issued with a party wall notice from their neighbour, the building owner.
A party wall notice is a legal requirement and building owners must serve these upon an adjoining owner if their proposed works fall within the Party Wall etc Act 1996.
PARTY WALL NOTICES
A building owner is required to serve a party wall notice for various reasons which include the following:
If a building owner is planning to build a new wall up to the line of junction between the two properties, then they are required to serve notice on the adjoining owner under section 1 of the Act.
A building owner would be required to serve a party wall notice under section 2 of the party wall Act if they are undertaking works directly to the party wall or structure. For example, cutting into the party wall for the insertion of padstones to support a new beam or cutting into a party wall or structure for the insertion of flashing etc.
Section 6 of the Act sets out that a building owner must serve party wall notice upon an adjoining owner if they are undertaking excavations within 3m of the adjoining owner’s property.
For works under either section 1 or 6 the building owner is required to serve notice 1 month prior to the commencement of the works. For works that fall within section of the Act, a building owner is required to serve notice 2 months prior to the commencement of the works.
PARTY WALL NOTICE TIMINGS
Once a building owner serves a party wall notice upon an adjoining owner, this leaves the adjoining owner with a 14-day period to respond to the notice with one of the three options available to them.
The first response option available to the adjoining owner is to consent to the notice which would allow the neighbour to proceed with their proposed works with no further party wall procedures in place. With this option, the adjoining owner would have to claim for damages in a neighbourly matter & they would be protected by common law rather than the Act.
Alternatively, the adjoining owner can dissent to the party wall notice and either appoint their own independent party wall surveyor or appoint an agreed party wall surveyor.
This would result in a Schedule of Condition being undertaken of the adjoining owner’s property and following on from this a party wall award would be created which provides the adjoining with full protection against the building owners works.
The 14-day notice period also includes an additional 2 days which allow for postage times.
If there has been no response to the notice from the adjoining owner after the 16-day period has passed, the building owner must serve a further notice in compliance with section 10(4) of the Party Wall Act.
This will allow the adjoining owner a further 10 days to respond to the notice with one of the three response options previously mentioned. Likewise with the initial notice, the 10(4) notice also has an additional 2 days to allow for postage times.
Once the 10(4)-notice period has passed and the adjoining owner is still unresponsive, a dispute is deemed to have arisen.
PARTY WALL SURVEYORS
At this stage, the building owner has two options. The building owner could appoint a party wall surveyor on behalf of their non-responsive neighbour, this party wall surveyor would then carry out a Schedule of Condition of the external areas of the adjoining property. The party wall surveyor would still write up the party wall award and then serve this upon the adjoining owner through the post.
Once the party wall surveyor has posted the party wall award, the building owner would be free to proceed with their proposed works.
Alternatively, the building owner could decide to progress without appointing a party wall surveyor on their adjoining owner’s behalf. There is a risk to this as the adjoining owner can decide to appoint a surveyor at any stage throughout the works which would cause delays.
We hope this post has been useful to you, please do not hesitate to speak with one of our experienced party wall surveyors if you have any queries or questions by clicking here.
