Do You Have The Party Wall Act Awards In Place?

If you are excavating within 3M of a neighbours wall or 6M of a party wall or completing works that will affect a party wall then you will probably need to comply with the legislation of the Party Wall Act.

Hopefully your Building Designer will have advised you of this and taken steps to advise you accordingly.

If you do need to comply with the party wall act, it usually requires the engagement of yet another specialist Party Wall Surveyor or even up to three if things cannot be agreed all at the site owners expense.

Complying with the requirements of the Party wall act can be very simple and can be achieved by a competent home owner but this is very much reliant upon the neighbours signing a document within 2 weeks of the notice being served.

Regretfully most neighbours do not comply and then it gets complicated - hence the requirement for a Party Wall Surveyor in most cases.

Many home owners crack on with the works even though they know that they should have obtained the Party Wall agreement first relying upon the uninformed neighbour or the neighbour not complaining.  Many do get away with it but the risk is having to tell your builder to stop works for several weeks while the whole the situation is resolved.  Will your builder come back?  Will you have to pay for his time while no works are being completed?