To ask neighbour to pause building work and sort out planning permission and party wall agreement before continuing?

I haven’t read the whole thread, but if I recall with party wall agreements, you can either use the surveyor that your neighbours are using if you are mutually happy with them or they are required to pay for your surveyor of choice to do a separate assessment. So once/if due process kicks in, your surveyor should be covered by then. When we did work one side is a commercial landlord and wanted to use their own surveyor, which we had to pay for, and one neighbour was happy with ours. So maybe don’t be too hasty getting a surveyor job at your own cost.

But I think you said the builder and surveyor appear to be the same person (?), in which case shouldn't he have known there'd be a likely problem?

Unless they all thought everyone would be too stupid to look into it I suppose ...

As far as I’m aware you can’t apply party wall legislation retrospectively as it's considered a civil matter, the council don’t get involved. If works have already started concerning a party wall you’re essentially at the mercy of your neighbours playing nice.

That's more if the works have already finished. You can't then apply the party wall legislation retrospectively. If the works are ongoing and the neighbour won't stop, you go to court for an interim injunction to force them to stop. In this case though, the council should get involved regardless because of the lack of planning and building regs

Call the council asap, one thing in their favour, if they are digging deep foundations then they are doing something right, legislation nowadays requires deep foundations and good insulation. You can check if they have applied here https://www.gov.uk/search-register-planning-decisions

By the way- any party wall surveys are paid for by them not you. And you get to choose who to use do not let them dictate this.

Almost everyone has told you to contact the Planing Department and Building Control - have you spoken to them?

They refused to show you their plans?
You didn't think that was unusual?
Really!

Tell the council you requested to see them and they refused.
You had better get real soon.

I would be telling the builder they refused to show you and that any damage he has done will be HIS responsibility too.
Surely he knows that planning would have been required due to its size?

The neighbour’s actions are typical better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Glad you stopped them before any real building completed as it’s very much more difficult to get work reversed or taken down than stopping it in the first place. I speak from experience 😐

You need to get down the planning office now.

I would insist on a party wall award, not just an agreement. And your own surveyor (the neighbour will have to pay for this). Do you have legal cover on your home insurance? I would speak to their solicitor if so too.
We've had no end of trouble with a similar situation.

And make sure you tell them to stop peeing on the garden fence. That smell won’t come out (I know, I have a dog that did that!)

In our case by the time we had tried to do this, the neighbours just pushed on with the work and had it finished by the time we looked into legal action. It was ruinously expensive to pursue through the courts, which they knew. They totally fucked our party wall and did the most desultory effort to correct it after the fact. We were so lucky to be able to sell to people who didn’t seem remotely bothered by the sudden emergence of an RSJ through our joined lofts

How long have they been in the house? Are they new neighbours? And you've mentioned about the value of your house a couple of times in this post, are you thinking of selling soon?

Good luck with this all. Also I'd get on to your house insurers legal department too to see what you are covered for just in case. They may also send someone to have a look at what's happening and how it might affect your house.

Why are you asking? Are British people such utter doormats? Ring building control, put in a formal complaint to planning, have a personal meeting with your ward councillor! Jesus Christ you need to do something.

don’t bother talking to the dickhead neighbour, get legal advice now.

Get your big girl pants on! The extension might be the least of your problems but certainly something you should object to as it will certainly block some light into your house onto some of your garden. But if they deepen the foundations and your house is attached to theirs, then your house will sink on that side… picture your furniture sliding across the floor. Foundation extensions are common in my neighbourhood and I’ve seen houses where this kind of work was not done properly, tilt so badly, the neighbours house wasn’t safe or habitable anymore. Then you’re into lawyers territory and it can take years to sort out.

my own neighbours did a huge renovation (deepened basement, gutted inside, extension) and it was 18 months of insane noise. At one point they drilled right into my living room!

If they have signed off planning permission then the party wall notice has been overlooked- you need to talk to the Planning department today, because there is a real possibility they have no permission.

If you read the OP posts they have got on to the Council and work has stopped

All it needed was OP to contact planning at the council and they’d get an enforcement office around to stop it
But instead, it’s been escalated into a huge drama liaising with builders demanding plans instructing surveyors which will achieve absolutely nothing more than simply contacting the planning department and getting an enforcement officer out in the first place
Just seems to be blown up into any enormous drama
where there was an easy obvious solution to it in the first place with a couple of phone calls

I don't think asking for them to follow regulations would count as neighbour dispute that you have to declare OP. To be honest I'm shocked the builders would go ahead without planning, it's usually the first part of their process, so they must be a bit of a cowboy outfit too.

It is a neighbour dispute. The idea is to show what the neighbours are like to prospective buyers.

I declared my situation(the same as this) and 'sold' my house twice. By then the extension was built so it was over and I was able to explain it to the buyers. The sale fell through, nothing to do with the dispute.

That's not quite true. Once work on a party wall has started you can't retrospectively get an agreement. So the 'drama' was entirely necessary. It took my council officer 3 weeks to come round, by then most of the extension was up.

And they will pick up and deal they can serve a notice to stop works