Party wall act queries

[Craig]

Hi - I dont know if anybody has any experience on this topic, but:

We have unveiled serious disrepair in a party wall whilst carrying out routine maintenance. The act requires us to give two months notice to carry out repiars, but thats not practical given how bad the situation is.
Is there an ability to do "emergency works" without notice?

Also, our next door neighbour on the other side has just started drilling to put in a chemical DPC into our party wall without telling us!

 

[Moo]

Perhaps someone here can give you a link so that you can download a copy of the Party Wall rules. Then, armed with it, you could approach your neighbour with a disingenuous enquiry about the work you need to do, and take the opportunity to steer the conversation round to the matter of their proposed DPC.

 

[sarahj]

http://www.communities.gov.uk/pub/411/PartyWalletcAct1996explanatorybookletPDF597Kb_id1131411.pdf

Not very good with these things but you will be able to copy and paste.

 

[Lime]

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1996/1996040.htm

 

[Johneds]

Craig, you are right that the period for s.2 notices is 2 months but you can proceed immediately after the neighbour agrees to the works. If the works are that urgent one would assume the neighbour would see that.

As for your second question, drilling for dpc does require notice but what does this mean in reality?

Your first option is to approach your neighbour and ask them to stop work and serve notice. If you are lucky they will stop and give you notice, you will appoint a surveyor who will draw up a party wall award which your neighbour will pay for. All this will take anything up to a couple of months. And of course all this time your neighbour sits around with the work part finished.

Chances are though that the neighbour will not stop work and will not serve notice. Your next option is to apply to the court for an injunction. By the time the injunction is served - assuming you can get one served - the work will probably be completed.

So what's the point of having a Party Wall Act? Well, in reality it does not tend to work well for small domestic works that are completed within a short period of time. (for the reasons given above.) The one main advantage is that where works do cause later problems, and owners have not followed the act, courts have tended to come down very strongly in favour of the adjoining owner and have effectively debarred the owners from seeking the protection of the Act.

My advice is to record everything that happens including dates, conversations etc. and write to your neighbour confirming this. It would also be wise to take a schedule of condition of your side of the property - this should include photographs. If anything does go wrong later you at least have the ace cards.

 

[skier-hughes]

A good way of broaching the subject would be to say that your builder/surveyor whatever, on seeing the wall said such and such work needs doing, it is important to get this work done immeidately, but then he brought to yor attention "The Party Wall" act, which you knew nothing about, and it says that all works .....blah di blah.

 

[Craig]

Thank you all.

Two topics really, both happening at the same time:

The injected DPC: the work is now done, so you are quite right. I guess many people have never heard of the act, though I think the surveyor who recommended the work should have.

On the other side of the house, the engineer came to look at the collapsing parapet and we were able to invite one of the people who work in the building next door to attend at the same time. I hope they will agree with proceeding promptly. Anyway, we will see - should get the engineers report shortly. Skier-hughes - your suggested tactic does sound quite good.

Many thanks
Craig