Feeling railroaded by neighbours

[MortaIWombat]

Neighbours came round on Thursday with a 'Party Structure Notice' for me to sign. They've been talking about getting a loft conversion for a couple of years now. They asked me to sign the paperwork, after showing some sketches (which I couldn't really visualise, but hey), and said their builder wanted to start work today (Monday).

I took the papers for a read, got madly googling, and called a surveyor to look over the plans and party wall agreement, as I'm not familiar with building regs at all. He's probably going to get the plans in a few days, and I had to tell my (lovely) neighbours that I wouldn't be signing until I'd had an expert check them over (terraced house, so a bit worried that the Victorian party wall might not take the strain of a whole extra layer of stuff!) - especially on our clay soil...

Anyway, came home today to find a pile of small bits of rubble in and outside my fireplace. Their builder's obviously started work. Don't know what he's done, but sandy-coloured chunks of stone seem to suggest more than just a bit of soot dislodged - he's drilled right through into my chimney breast.

Where do I stand? How do I ensure
a) My house is safe and not going to collapse (like one around the corner did )?
b) Neighbours' builder isn't a complete shyster - because he sounds it (a whole other story)?
c) I'm not left spending loads getting my wall and chimney mended?

I've already bloody agreed to let him put scaffolding up in my side return for two months. I just feel they're taking the piss, and I worry about my lovely house decaying at the best of times, given its age, without someone hastening its end by drilling chunks out of it.
Very tempted to light a fire and see if they have got a leak out into their side

Thanks for reading, if you have. I've also got a parent seriously ill in hospital, and I just feel really angry and helpless that, knowing this, neighbours have served a notice and hassled me to sign it within three days, when a quick google suggests it can be served up to a year in advance of works beginning, then they let their builder begin attacking the party wall even before I've agreed, and then basically ignored my call asking what's going on.
Argh. Tell me to stop being so precious, and my house won't be damaged, and these are normal neighbours.

The builder apparently. And yes, to their credit, the neighbours brought round a copy for us.

Great so no architect, no structural engineer and plans done by builder on the back of a fag packet.

As suspected. No consideration for safety during or after construction. Never mind whether the proposed works will damage the party wall or that the party wall will withstand whatever they are proposing.

Over 15 years of surveying experience tells me that anyone you rushes around days before commencing works and tries to rail road a neighbour into agreeing to it all (fully disregarding the proper notification period for PWA!), isn't out to do a proper job in any way.

If you go to your councils website and look under environment and planning, you will find Building control.

And building control WILL stop works where a neighbour contacts them to say that party wall procedure wasn't followed and they are not prepared to sign a PWA. Particularly if structural works are involved.

Wellies. I really do hope you get everything sorted.

I don't know what the plans look like or what your house looks like so its difficult to comment.

However when you do speak to Building Control who will probably attend, do try to get an impression with regards to structural changes which affect the load (weight) into the party wall. This could be additional beams going into party wall.
It could also be a dormer placed in such a way as to adding load into the party wall

If there is indeed additional load being added then your neighbours need a structural engineer to calculate that load and by way of report warrant that this is safe.
An unqualified builder with a fag packet drawing has no idea at all I'm afraid
And neither do your neighbours.

PM if you want Wellies.

There definately needs to be a structural drawing with all the calcs on it, for the builder to work too. Building control should have been informed at the council, but a builder can instruct private building control to oversee the works from there on in.

The PWA is a wishy washy agreement, LondonGirl83 is pretty spot on with what she was saying, don't think she was trying to be patronising.

Can you start a conversation with your neighbours, just outline your concerns? See what they say to that?

Actually, the drawings you may have been given that you have forwarded to your surveyor might be the engineering drawings. The structural engineering drawings tend to only have the structural detailing on them-- where padstones are, where steel is to be inserted etc so might look light on detail but are actually designed to be layered on top of the architects drawings which show more of the aesthetic design. We used both an architect (who commissioned our engineering drawings from a structural engineer) and a builder but ours was a very large project. Most people I know who have just done a standard loft conversion have either used a specialst loft company or a builder. Most builders (including ours) have their own staff qualified to do both the engineering drawings as well as the architectural drawings for planning permission. The lack of an independent architect on a job like this wouldn't be a red flag for me.

It sounds like your neighbours are trying to communicate with you but might not be doing a good job of walking you through what's going on (they may not understand everything either to be honest if they've never done it before!).

It's really worth having a chat with them face to face to determine if building control-- private or council have been notified and if the engineering plans have been submitted and / or pre-approved (pre-approval isn't necessary for standard jobs but would provide an additional level of comfort). Also, let them know that while you understand they can get on with the loft, they should not be doing work on the partywall until you've signed the notice and insist that both of you agree a conditions schedule so if there is any damage, you can go to the builder for compensation (even in the best of circumstances, accidents happen). This would also be a good time to ask for the builder's insurance details / policy number. We made sure we had all of this in hand and provided it to our neighbours before work began.

They may not have thought through all of this themselves so will probably appreciate you reminding them they need to get all of this information themselves. Afterall, while your partywall is at risk, for them, its their entire house so both of you should really have the same goal / interests at heart.

We were very late getting our party wall agreements out (didn't realise we needed one) but we had all the proper structural calcs etc and we'd submitted to building control and got sign off at every stage. Our drawings were also quite light on detail, but they were and are fine. So it might not be all bad.

It is poor to start before you've agreed though, we got our builders to stick to outside stuff in our garden/ripping out stud walls until our neighbours agreed. Not to say that it's all been plain sailing, but we have tried to make sure that anything that bothers our neighbour (scaffolding blocked their sky signal for example) is fixed and paid for by us ASAP.