Thinking of Loft Conversion, how much will party wall notice/Surveyor cost - ref neighbours possible ojections?

[soberton]

Hi
I'm on the south coast in Hampshire and thinking of having loft room done to create a bedroom and a bathroom (just shower cubicle, WC and hand basin). We live in a late victorian single bay and forcourt style mid terraced house. We've been here for 16 years and have three daughters, the two youngest share bunkbeds in the middle room and the eldest has a tiny box room at the back. We bought this house back in '97 and paid £55k, looking at local properties for sale we could value it at around £175k so there is plenty of equity. My DH and DC's are happy in this area and settled in schools etc so they don't want to move.
A specialist loft conversion company came round last week becuase I wanted to know if it was a viable idea in the first instance ref height clearance etc - apparently it is, but it is borderline and he mentioned lowering some of the first floor ceilings (they're quite high anyway - victorian!). He said that we'd need to get party wall notices signed by both neighbours before anything could go ahead, but the rest (L shaped dormer) would get through under permitted development.
Just wondered what it would cost, especially if neghbour on one side objected or wanted their own surveyor (at our expense). The loft work would set us back between £25k and £30K.
Neigbours on one side would be fine - young housemates/students renting. The other side might decide to be arsey for the sake of it because when they had a single story extension build last year they didn't give us any proper notice at all and definately no party wall notice. We fell out when our fence was damaged by their workmen and we had to press them to put it right. They had their work done by a 'cowboy' builder who had a full time day job and had never head of the party wall act. Apparently he quoted them £8k for their extension! and then laughed behind their backs saying "well, you get what you pay for!"
Their work started in March and went on throughout the spring & summer on and off - we could leave windows open because everything would get covered in their dust and to compound matters, power tools were used during the evenings, weekends, bank hols etc. The loft firm I spoke to last week only do Mon to Fri 8am to 5pm, so no great dissruption to them I hope. Our dining table is in our kitchen so even when we'd sit down to meals and looked up there would be one of their workers in view and possibly looking in. Next door didn't seem to think that there was a problem and went on several holidays whilst it was going on!
Sorry to digress, I just wanted to give you some background I suppose that I'm worried that they'd prove difficult as a result of last years problems. Incidently, they and their builder parted company under bad terms and they had to get someone else in to rectify problems.
Thank you for your patience reading through this, I'd really appreciate your feedback.
TIA

Sorry, that's never heard of Party Wall Notice and we couldn't leave doors or windows open due to their mess and dust coming in.

Shouldn't be a problem - our neighbours just signed the agreement for the loft conversion, didn't ask for a surveyor or anything. It wasn't any extra for us. We have given them copies of our plans and they had a chat with our builders to reassure themselves. We did pay to have their sky dish moved because our scaffolding blocked their signal (so embarassed).

Again our neighbours, looked at plans and signed party wall agreement.

For yours / and theirs sake offer to do a schedule of condition. You can get a surveyed to do it or do it yourself. Basically take pictures of the relevant walls and ceilings on their side of the wall, then if they suggest their is a problem so you have photographic evidence to work with.

Get you / your builders to write and agree terms of work ie:time of work / tidying up / do you need scaffolding on their side / will it be supported in their gardens. If you feel there might be a problem document everything!

On a lighter note we love our loft!

Thanks for your replies so far, please keep them coming - would like as much info as possible :) Any idea of the costs of these agreements/condition of survey?
Also to anyone whose neighbours have had this done, how did it impact on your own home eg was there much mess etc. I have just bought a vax carpet shampooer (£300 in John Lewis) and could always offer to lend them that.
The Loft Conversion company will obviously need to put scaffolding front & back but hopefully contain it on our side. The business owner assures me that they only work Mon to Fri 8AM TO 5pm, so no unsociable hours or invasion of privacy.
There is an old obsolete chimney stack at the very back of the house on the party wall which has caused us problems in the past by letting rain during the winter and ruining things in boxes near it. The chimney breast bricks are dropping due to the old mortar (looks like a parquet floor effect). All the walls below this chimney breast (back bedroom & Kitchen have been levelled & smoothed over years ago). The builder said that it wasn't a problem to deal with and sometimes to be expected in this age of house, he said that, as a sweetener, he could take away the chimney stack and make good all the roof tiles etc, on both sides, as though the chimney had never been there. I'm hoping that might help because looking at the condition of it from an existing velux window up there, it's unlikely to have just corroded on our side. It's just that we've always used our loft for storage etc (pull down ladder & big hatch) but I doubt they've ever been in theirs.

"He said that we'd need to get party wall notices signed by both neighbours before anything could go ahead, but the rest (L shaped dormer) would get through under permitted development."

Two different things entirely

Party Wall Act (Civil Law)

'Permitted Development': General Development Order(s) / Town & Country Planning Acts (Statutory)

You also need Building Regulations approval and inspections by the Building Control Officer (or an Approved Inspector). Most loft conversion 'specialists' include this in their quotes but worth checking.

I am hoping to have a loft conversion soon. One of our neighbours signed the party wall notice, the other is a council tennant so we will probably have to pay for a surveyor - I think its around £1000.

My house is a 70's terrace, there is not likely to be any problems regarding the neighbours house. In a Victorian terrace I would expect the neighbours to ask for a surveyor as the chances of something going wrong is bigger.

Hello Party Wall Surveyor here. This is straightforward work, you can serve the notice yourself - if you google party wall notice template you'll find templates. You will need a section 3 party structure template.

Then your neighbour will either consent to the work [must be in writing] - hurrah, nothing more needed and no cost. If you get on with your neighbour try hand delivering the notice and explaining what you are doing. Often works.

or they will dissent and want a surveyor to draw up a party wall award or agreement. You can either have surveyor each or an agreed surveyor. One surveyor that you agree between you. The latter is the cheaper option.

I'm south london and would expect total fees for 2 surveyors not to exceed £1,500.00 or an agreed surveyor at about £800.00?

You need to watch for speculative companies writing to your neighbour when you put a planning application in. They are competent but they do know how to charge!

Steve

We had a neighbour who called in a west end surveyor to draw up the agreement. Cost us £1500 in total (as we had to hire a surveyor too)and lost us a month in build delays as they had verbally agreed but we didn't give them the generic online agreement to sign early enough and could do nothing about it when they decided to involve a 3rd party as the act states it can be their choice. Total rigamarole - the generic paperwork stated that we would bear all risk.

So lessons learned.
By all means use a generic doc off t'interweb
Issue it well in advance, in writing with paper copies of the plans included. Date it and confirm receipt.
Ensure that your contract with the builder covers you [as the party wall agreement is not between your neighbour and the builder] to reclaim the costs for damages from your builder
Get photos of before and after for hairline cracks etc.

Finally - we also had our ceilings lowered. PM me if you want further details but if you have a family be prepared to move out.

Pendeen, thanks for your feedback, much appreciated :) The builder did talk about Building Regulations because he stressed that whilst it wasn't a matter for planning permission, it would have to comply with Building Regs which is why he was concerned with the borderline hight clearance in the existing loft - although he said it was not impossible, just maybe a bit of a challenge (he has been doing loft conversions for the better part of 20yrs in the Hampshire area). He said that he has a good working rapport with the Building Regulation Officers in the Local Authority, so I'm hoping that he would take that on board (thus providing a 'one-stop' shop) or at least be in a strong position to advise us - he has good testimonial reviews on his website, one person I even know, however I didn't know they'd used him until I looked up the company. He also recommended a firm of local Architectural Surveyors with whom he has worked closely in the past, in particular one member of the team who has experience and flexibility with quirks in properties. He said that if we chose to go ahead to let him know when that Surveyor came round for an initial appointment and he'd arrange to be here too.
It's just really frustrating that we can't do anything without neighbour's permission but they didn't give us that courtesy last year in fact no consideration whatsoever. When they had their extension built last year (started in March and went on and off through to October), they didn't bother with the party wall act, in fact had never heard of it! They were quite cocky about the fact that it was under permitted development and did'nt need planning permission. Their foundations were adjacent to our patio - approx 4ft from my french doors which lead from my kitchen to the garden, in fact they were using my garden table for their tea cups etc and walked round the other side of my house to help themselves to our hose! We fell out when our fence was damaged and we had to press them to fix it. They all had official day jobs which meant that they did this work during evenings, weekends, bank hols etc. But next door didn't see a problem with this when we objected to our lack of privacy! We didn't want to be objective because we could see their justification for extra room on the kitchen to create a dining space - they only have one downstairs room otherwise, it was just the way they went about it rather than getting the job done properly they did it all one the cheap with 'cowboy workers'. It just fear that they may dig their heals in because of last years problems and make it as difficult as possible. Does anyone know if we can put a 'cap' on their survey fees to prevent them taking advantage? They never do any maintainence on the place anyway eg guttering overflowing for 4 yrs, building materials sitting in front forecourt for over a year etc.
Sorry it's long winded.
TIA

Sorry, that's 'I just fear they'd make it as difficult as poss'.

Oscarwilde, with respect to lowering the ceilings affecting childrens bedrooms he (and his testimonials) say that he has lots of experience working with family homes, with them still in situ, and he suggested putting in false ceilings on the childrens bedrooms as one of the first jobs and taking everything 'up' from above that so that he'd didn't affect their rooms whilst work was going on. Some of his reviews from previous clients state that there were young children around and he & his team were conscious about shutting stairgates even when carrying materials upstairs.
He offered to arrange for us to visit homes where he has carried out work.

We have just had a (rather lovely) loft conversion completed on our Victorian terrace. With regards to serving party wall notice - OH just downloaded a template from the internet and sent to both sets of neighbours who signed it without any problems. We had to have two first floor bedroom ceilings lowered but we didn't move out and managed to stick it out living downstairs (but still with access to our third bedroom and the bathroom). It was hard going when the ceilings came down and the worst thing was the dust; no matter how hard we tried to protect the rest of the house (i.e. by sealing up doors, covering floors etc.), it got EVERYWHERE and I mean everywhere. Basically we have resigned ourselves to the fact that most of the house has to be redecorated! This is by no means a reflection on the builders as they were brilliant - but from what I can gather this is what happens when you are dealing with a property which is a hundred years old! Once the new ceilings were in place the work was fairly non intrusive as all the work was then happening in the new room. Both our sets of neighbours did however get some damage to their properties - plaster falling off their walls (both sides) and one neighbour's loft unfortunately got filled with thick black dust which ruined some of the stuff they had in storage. The builder didn't hesitate to sort out the plaster work although he refused to take responsibility for the effects of the dust (said that the neighbours should have made sure their stuff was properly protected and their loft properly sealed) so we ended up forking out £300 for a specialist cleaning firm to sort that out for them (to keep the peace!)
The builder sorted out the building regs inspections/sign-off with the local authorities (whom he seemed to be on pretty good terms with) so that was no hassle. Things I would recommend if you go ahead with it all.. (1) use an architect to draw up the plans so you can visualise exactly how it will look - (if you are going with a specialist loft firm then they may already be equipped to do this themselves). Our builder recommended one to us (whom he had worked with previously) so we got him to draw up various workable ideas in order for us to work out exactly what we wanted - this cost us £400.
(2) Remember that you will need fire doors putting in on the loft room and the first floor in order to meet building regs - we didn't actually like the ones that the builder suggested to us so ended up sourcing our own (fairly pricey)
(3) Agree a payment plan up front. We agreed to pay in installments every week and only paid the final chunk once we got the sign off from building control.
(4) Do be prepared for additional costs to crop up - either things that need to be done as the work progresses or things that you might decide you want done as you see things take shape. For example, we decided that we wanted a bigger velux window halfway through and an additional sun tunnel (brilliant things) right at the end.
(5) If you are getting ceilings lowered make sure you are 100% happy with the new height. We spent a long time debating the ceiling height with the builder as we didn't want to go too low on the first floor (and lose the Victorian feeling) but at the same time by husband didn't want to be scraping his head against the roof in the loft room. Thankfully we got it just right!
(6) Be prepared for the dust. We lived in the house the whole time but I think if we could have lived elsewhere for the week when the ceilings came down we would have done (but then I am heavily pregnant with a 2 year old and a 4 year old!)
(7) Definitely try and visit other properties that the builders have worked on - we visited two so we got an idea of the finish we could expect and also what other clients thought of the builders etc.

Overall we are thrilled with the results and it was well worth the four weeks of building work (and the money spent!). If you have any more questions just ask - hopefully this has been some help!

Thank you so much peacypops, all that has been a fantastic help - I'm going to print out this thread later so that I've got it to hand without looking it up all the time, will no doubt be adding notes too! :)
It was also interesting that yours is also victorian terrace (I think this house was built around 1880 ish - a large part of the neighbourhood seems to have sprung up between 1880 - 1900). Just curious to know what a sun tunnel is - am I right in thinking it might be like a porthole window at the end? Also, if you don't mind my asking what was the total cost, pre decorating, for the project - eg from start to creating usable rooms in loft (we can do all our own decorating, soft furnishings etc), to nearest £5k, just to give me a ball park figure of what to budget for?
TIA

Hi OP

My experience of "lowering ceilings" (in a Victorian terrace) is that the current ceilings and joists above are ripped out so from the bedroom you have a clear view to the top of your roof. The top level of the walls separating current bedrooms are removed. Holes are drilled into the external walls to support the new steels (hence the need for a party wall agreement).
New steels are inserted to support the new loft, new joists are put in alongside them. Plasterboard is put up in the bedrooms below and subsequently plastered but not until the final stages when the loft will be plastered too.
Access to the loft will be external via scaffolding through a hole in the roof - net result is the house is draughty and cold.
Approx 2-3 weeks in, the staircase will be installed and boarding put down in the loft.

Approx 150 yrs of Victorian dust and grime will be unleashed assuming your current home has lathe and plaster ceilings. Your carpets will be ruined unless removed, and the builders will look like they have been down a coal mine for about 3 days.

We lived in our house but the bedrooms were unusable and had to be completely emptied. Electrical sockets to the rooms were disconnected and obv no overhead lighting (since no ceilings), damage to the bedroom walls meant that they all had to be replastered (not skimmed). The sales guy told us we could leave our large pieces of furniture in the rooms and "they would work around them". This was news to the building team on day one so I had to hastily arrange for the furniture to be removed and stored offsite.

Don't get me wrong - it has been worth it, I just wish that we had moved out for the worst 6-8 weeks and let them get on with it. It would have been much faster for all concerned and a temporary local rental would have been a similar cost to the cost of storing furniture.

On the other hand, it's been useful that I've been here for ours so I can shout at hastily correct mistakes that the builders have made.

Oh wow, anyone know how much impact it had on neighbours either side, ref dust/dirt etc throughout their houses? Hopefully their satalight signals to their dishes won't be affected (bound to kick off about that) but who knows!
Thank you to everyone for your feedback, it really is a great help.

In terms of lowering the ceilings, Oscarwilde is completely right in that you end up with big void up to the roof and ridiculous amounts of dirt and dust coming down everywhere. We had to completely empty the two rooms where the ceilings were coming down and we took up all our carpets on the first floor landing/stairs etc (as they were fairly new and we didn't want them ruined). We had to have some plaster-work done in the bedrooms but not throughout. In terms of timescales, our new ceilings were back in within just over a week, so as I said previously we did manage to stay in the house throughout. The whole job from start to finish took just over 4 weeks but I think this was quite good going compared to what I have heard from others.
Our house is a little younger than yours - it's late Victorian so around the turn of the century (still old though!!)
And yes - you are right, a sun tunnel is porthole shape window at the end of a tube which is fitted to direct natural light into darker areas of a house (if you google images on internet there are lots of pics). We were a bit concerned that the first floor might feel dark once the new staircase was installed so we had one fitted on the first floor as well as one on the small landing outside the new loft room on the second floor. As a result we really do get a good sense of light so would definitely recommend them (even though thy are a few hundred pounds each).
As for costs, we paid just over 20k. We don't have a bathroom up there - just one large bedroom (very good sized double) with a velux at front and dormered at the back. All the electrics were done - spotlights in, radiator fitted, fire doors fitted throughout the house etc. So basically we were left with painting and putting flooring down in new room and carpeting new stairs. As I said, we are really pleased with the work - our young daughter has moved up there and absolutely loves it (quite a pad for a 5 year old!) We just need to finish decorating the rest of the house now in time for baby three in September!