Party Wall Agreements

[omama]

We are planning a loft conversion (semi detached) so will need to sort out a party wall agreement & give the required notice to our neighbours.

Can anyone advise how we go about this? Is it something we can do ourselves or do we need a solicitor to draw one up?

Thanks in advance

For anyone else with the same question, I've been doing some googling & have now found this link which has lots of useful info & sample letters so we can diy:

www.gov.uk/party-wall-etc-act-1996-guidance

Only thing I'm still unsure of is when to serve the notice. We're on a fairly tight timescale (want to get works done before arrival of dc2 in Dec). Am aware we need to serve minimum 2 months notice of intention to start but can ask if neighbours would consent to an earlier start date in writing.

We're meeting with loft company tomorrow but haven't even had drawings done yet. Would we need to wait til these are done & present them along with the notice? Or can we just detail the works affecting the party wall i.e. load bearing steels into the party wall & say drawings to follow? Don't want to delay things unnecessarily but don't want to send a notice that could be deemed invalid! Any advice much appreciated. Thanks

We've just had a loft conversion and agreed the party wall arrangements and got everything signed well up front. We did it a couple of months before everything started which was on the advice of our loft company, who supplied us with all documentation which detailed the works but it was before drawings were done.

I'm glad we did as we knew we were set and everything agreed with neighbours well in advance. Also when the planning application went in, as everything is available online, our neighbours were inundated with letters from solicitors and surveyors offering their services and suggesting they appoint them (at our expense) to represent them and not sign any paperwork we offered them.

Luckily my neighbours are very sensible and it was obvious this was all opportunistic advertising as my neighbours on both sides were contacted, including the one which is not connected to us (semi detached house here too)!

Thanks ever so much for your reply. Can't believe the cheek of the surveyors trying to tout for business that way! Luckily we don't need planning for our conversion so hopefully we should avoid that situation!

Our loft conversion company didn't seem to favour issuing a PWA notice - they said they've only had one customer do it in 16 years, & in their experience all it leads to is extra cost & delays (which we really don't need!). I got the impression they think its all a bit of a waste of time & effort. They are a well regarded company in our area & have also come on personal recommendation so I'm quite happy they are not cowboys, but was certainly a little surprised at their opinions on this. I'm now a little worried that in issuing a notice, we are just inviting our neighbours to appoint a surveyor just because they can iyswim?

How much detail did you give to your neighbours on the works to be carried out, given you didn't have the plans/calculations? Could you pm me if you don't want to post it on here? As far as we know, the only works affecting our party wall are the installation of 2 steel beams, but are unsure if explaining this is sufficiently detailed, or whether we should give them the full schedule of works, even though most of it is completely irrelevant to them.

Thanks

We had our loft converted earlier this year in our mid terrace house. We drew the agreements up ourselves using online templates. Your conversion sounds similar to ours in that the only work to the party walls in the steel beams, and this is the only work mentioned in the agreement.

I think it went something like "cut into the party wall to insert two steel beans and their associated padstones".

I've just checked our agreement and it said similar to madamcake's agreement "to cut into the party wall for the insertion of padstones/bearer plates and steel beams for the support of a new loft conversion"

You may not need planning permission but you will need a certificate of lawful development, which is handled by your local authority planning dept which is what we needed. Its less onerous than planning and is to ensure the work meets building regulations. Our application was published on our local authority website which is where all the letters etc came from to our neighbours!

I would be tempted to get the party wall agreement sorted then you have all relevant paperwork in place and your neighbours will have formally consented to your building works in case of any problems. Its also handy to have that stuff when you come to sell.

Am happy to show you copy of my agreement if you want - just pm me!

Just to add, it didn't cost or delay anything, but then our neighbours just signed it and didn't have any issues with the agreement/works being done.

Just be aware that if you don't do it your neighbours can stop the work. You have to have the agreement.
They may not appoint a surveyor, I would.
I would start it as soon as possible as if they do appoint a surveyor it can take time-feb to May in our case....

madamecake We also have an online template from the gov.co.uk link I posted above. thanks for wording suggestion, we'd been discussing earlier & had decided on similar wording so that's reassuring thankyou.

jcee I'll pm u in morning. Certificate of lawful development - is this the building regs approval? Ah didnt realise that also got published so will have to hope the letters dont come pouring in!

superram this is exactly why we want to do it! Dont want to take that risk. Just hope they give consent & we dont open up a big can of worms. I think we are going to issue the letter later this week. Just need to get idea of start dates from company & we can get something drafted.

We'd also thought about drafting a consent reply to give to our neighbours so all they have to do is sign & give back to us - is this a good idea or not?

Thanks again everyone!