Help! Nightmare with the neighbour Post Reply

[moo moo]

Hello,
We're having a nightmare with our neighbour re. Party wall agreement.
We've secured planning permission from Lambeth Council to build a basement extension, but we've had to stop the builders from continuing work because our neighbour is questioning the plans etc - even though we've been completely above board and accommodating re.sharing info with him and not doing any digging during the summer months - at his request!
Does anyone have experience of a neighbour putting the stops on a build because of not agreeing on the party wall? Can we just ignore him and carry on because he doesn't have a valid reason for us not to do the work? Urghhh about to go crazy!!!!
Many thanks in advance for any info.

[GardenRosie]

Hello

This isn't my area of expertise, but my understanding is that you need to serve notice before you commence works. If your neighbour objects, then an objective party wall surveyor is appointed who makes an award and this decides what needs to be done to continue with work.

You can then crack on and are liable for any damage - the surveyor will also record how the walls etc are looking before works begin so you can see if damage is because of your works.

Once you have served notice you have two weeks for them to object and then the surveyor comes in, so at worst it delays things a month. Endless negotiations will delay it a lot longer than that!

There is some more information here
https://www.gov.uk/party-wall-etc-act-1996-guidance

Good luck

Rosie

[supermummy]

Party wall is nothing to do with planning permission. There is a statutory timetable to follow to get your party wall agreement ( unless your neighbours will agree to do it more quickly and less formally). Provided you follow this process they cannot stop you doing the works in the end - the process protects their interest in the party wall but is not a right of veto . If you don't follow the party wall process, however, they could get an injunction to force you to stop until the party wall award is made.

So, if you ignore him (assuming he is of course entitled to an award) you risk getting an injunction plus being landed with his costs..plus your building contract may have delay penalties if works need to be suspended and it's your fault.

Has your architect/ builder/ project manager not advised on this ?

[mumoftwoboys]

Hi there

We are also digging out a basement and had lots of delays before starting due to planning and party wall agreements.

Your neighbours can't actually object to your plans after you have received planning permission (they should have done so during the planning process) so you can carry out the work but it is better to have the party wall in place.

My advice to you is not to start the dig out until you have your party wall in place. It is a long, slow and expensive process but it's really important to have this in place before you start work. Thankfully, our neighbours agreed to use our party wall surveyor to act on their behalf as well but the whole process took about five weeks to finalise as the surveyor had to take photos of their properties to keep a record of any damage they had before our work started in case they later claim cracks etc. due to the work we had done in our house. We also had to get our lawyers involved as the neighbours wanted to put some money aside in case they needed it at the end of our project to fix their properties...

One thing that we did was to have a meeting with both neighbours, our party wall surveyor, architect, builder and structural engineer at the site to discuss the plans and the processes which I think really helped.

Good luck!

[hjm]

I feel your pain. We had a nightmare with our next door neighbour a few years ago regarding a side return extension. Ultimately it ended up with solicitors (we won) but it cost us a lot of money in legal fees, a lot of time and a lot of tears and sleepless nights. She was so unreasonable. It still makes me cross to this day!

Please be really careful before starting any work. I wouldn't want anyone to go through what we did.

You need a good party wall surveyor. We are currently using a guy called John Soulsby on another project, and he has been great. We have 7 next door neighbours(!) as the houses have been divided in to flats and the process this time around has been pretty seamless. This may be down to the fact that this time around we have much nicer, more reasobable neighbours, but even so I think he knows his stuff.
johnr.soulsby@ntlworld.com

[moo moo]

Thanks so much for all your very helpful replies!