Party Wall Advice for you as the Adjoining Owner – the Owner who owns / occupies the property beside where the building works are proposed.

Adjoining owners party wallYour instructions will be carried out for you by Allen Norman, Director of Ely Design Group and who is a Chartered Building Surveyor and a Fellow of the Faculty of Party Wall Surveyors. He has many years experience in all aspects of the Party Wall etc Act 1996 and will provide you with the correct advice.

As the Adjoining Owner (the neighbour beside the owner proposing to carry out building works) you are unlikely to directly benefit from your neighbour’s party wall works; in fact, for a short period of time, you may experience some disruption to your daily life. Consequently, when you receive a notice under the Party Wall etc Act 1996 from the building owner (your neighbour) you should carefully consider how best to safeguard your home and your rights during the progress of the works.

Party Wall Notice Options

Once you receive a notice, served under the Party Wall Act, from the Building Owner you only have fourteen days in which to respond in writing.

You usually have four main options available to you which are detailed below:-

1   You can consent to the Party Wall Notice. This option allows the Building Owner to get on with his works with no further action required from either party. In this case Party Wall Surveyors are not appointed and your neighbour will not incur any further party wall costs. We recommend that you and your neighbour consider having a Party Wall Agreement which will formally document the agreement and will included a Schedule of Condition.

2   You can consent to the notice subject to the Building Owner arranging for a Schedule of Condition of your property being prepared. This option is attractive to both parties as it is an impartial record of the condition of your property and can be relied upon at a later date if damage does occur. If damage does occur then there is a dispute under the Act and both the Building Owner and the you, as the Adjoining Owner, must each appoint a Surveyor or agree on one Surveyor and the Surveyor(s) will resolve the dispute.

3   You can dissent to the Party Wall Notice. This option means that a difference arises between you and your neighbour and requires that both of you must each appoint a Party Wall Surveyor or concur in the appointment of one Surveyor who is referred to as the ‘Agreed Surveyor.’ If you appoint us to act as your Party Wall Surveyor then we will examine the proposed plans, check the engineer’s design and make an initial assessment of the likely impact of the party wall works. The Surveyor(s) will prepare a Party Wall Award and a Schedule of Condition of your property. The Award is agreed between the Surveyors and a copy is then served on the Building Owner and you as the Adjoining Owner.

4   You can do nothing. In most circumstances, if you do nothing for more that fourteen days after you have received a Party Wall Notice, a difference is deemed to have arisen between you and the Building Owner and the same procedure applies as detailed in option 3 above. If you still do nothing the Building Owner can give you a further 10 days to appoint a surveyor (or you can still consent to the works as referred to above) and after then the Building Owner can appoint a Surveyor who will act for you.

CONTACT US
to discuss our appointment as your Party Wall Surveyor or complete the short form below and we will contact you.

Please leave us some details about your project, including your postal address (so that we can write to you), so that we know what your project consists of. You can also upload your drawings below or, alternatively, you email them to us mail@elydesigngroup.co.uk
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