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Legal matters

Party Wall/Legal people - foundations trespass

5 replies

sufferingaggressiveneighbours · 21/02/2018 12:56

Hi

Name change - regular poster to this lovely forum.

We have some aggressive neighbours who are doing extensive building work and have shown no respect to the legal rights of either of their neighbours of their detached house. On one side they thought they could build on a shared driveway (issue now resolved legally I understand). On our side their footings have come under the fence which is on our side of the boundary. It is now being propped up artificially. Plans showed their foundations coming as far as the boundary. Of course, if the foundations exceed the boundary then the building with its eaves may well do too.

We understand that it is not within the jurisdiction of the party wall surveyor, although he said it is debateable and is shocked at the level of aggression. His approach would be for him to get involved to avoid a civil dispute. The other sides party wall surveyor, just seems to think we should go civil.

We have had our boundary measured by a professional surveyor (at our expense) but they are refusing access. Obviously, we would use this as showing we have done everything we can to prevent a civil dispute.

My questions are:
Can the (very professional top firm) party wall surveyor help us further without us incurring his costs?
What should we do regarding access for our boundary surveyor being refused?
What should we do regarding the trespass of the foundations?
What can we do regarding a potential building/eaves trespass?

We will be grateful for any pointers that can be given.

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Collaborate · 21/02/2018 19:23

Check your house insurance policy for legal cover. Unless the surveyor is a charity they'll need paying.

Re the party wall surveyor - the normal process is you enter in to a PWA agreement. If you haven't got one of those consider applying for an injunction to restrain further work until agreement can be reached.
The PWA will deal with things like the foundations, so perhaps you have no agreement after all.
To prevent the trespass you get an injunction from the court.

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sufferingaggressiveneighbours · 21/02/2018 19:54

Thanks. Yes we do have a party wall agreement but not one that suggests the building or foundations goes up to the junction. It is meant to stop short of the boundary.

We are paying our boundary surveyor and are happy to do so. Will check house insurance for legal costs.

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sufferingaggressiveneighbours · 21/02/2018 20:23

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Collaborate · 22/02/2018 00:27

Under the PWA you can appoint your own surveyor at the cost of your neighbour. Were you aware of this?

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sufferingaggressiveneighbours · 22/02/2018 09:16

Yes we have our own PWA surveyor which the neighbour is paying for.
The boundary was measured by someone we paid for as a lot appears to be outside the jurisdiction of the PWA surveyors. It looks like we had the incorrect PWA for their overbuild. My understanding is that we need to go civil for an overbuild and we will need to pay.