Party Wall question - can anyone help please?

[GnomeDePlume]

We are in an attached house (end of terrace) and planning an extension which will go across the width of the rear of the house.

If we build the side wall approximately 30cm in from the attached side boundary will we need to give notice to our neighbours under the Party Wall Act?

We are already giving notice under the Neighbour Consultation Scheme.

While we are happy to keep neighbours informed, we dont want to frighten them with Party Wall stuff if we can avoid it.

Can anyone give advice or experience please?

I believe so, our neighbours (not adjoining) gave notice under the Party Wall Act and their extension ended about 70 cm or so from our boundary fence.

Yes, if you build within 3m of the party wall you should tel them (with a least 2 months' notice).

DickDewy the 3m rule applies only if we were going to have deeper foundations than the original houses. I dont think that we will be as the houses are all less than 10 years old so should have modern foundations.

If we do give notice then I think it will be a Line of Junction notice which only requires one month notice and no need for a reply from the neighbours within 14 days.

I have been researching and researching on the whole Party Wall thing including reading MN horror stories!

Thanks both for the advice. We have the builder coming round tomorrow so will add the depth of foundations question to the list of things to ask.

It sounds like we will need to give Party Wall notice but will hopefully just be the Line of Junction notice.

I don't have any party wall advice as such. But in our house we had an issue of rats getting in under the floorboards. When we found their access it was a hole right at the end of where our extension (prob about 10 years old) met the original house. Because there was only a 30cm gap between our extension and our neighbour's lean to it was very difficult to fix. We managed it but I would be put off buying any house again Where I couldn't access the entire exterior for maintenance. Just throwing my two pence in!

My understanding is yes you do, as you will be digging within 3m of their foundations. However, DH is the expert not me.

Can you not ask the person who did your drawings? They should be able to advise you.

No formal drawings as this is a joint project between DH & the builder. DH will be digging for the foundations (under direction from builder and building control). The builder will then build the walls and put the roof on. DH will then do windows & doors, electrics etc (he is an electrician).

In many ways this is a far less complex project than many as the extension we will be building replaces a much smaller existing extension. So no need for beams for doorways etc as the aperture already exists.

Builder came round again today. DH is going to dig a deep hole (1m) then builder will get building control to look into it to decide if it needs to be deeper still!

The builder has agreed to come in from the boundary so that we wont be touching the boundary at all. The Party Wall notice then seems to be simpler.