Party Wall Agreement (Detached)

[4yearsnosleep]

Hi All

We are having a single storey extension built in July. There's about 2.5m between us and the neighbours. It's my understanding that we only need a party wall agreement if the foundations of our extension are deeper than the ones for their house. All were built 18 years ago and are 2 storey, so I suspect that our extension foundations won't be deeper? What's the best way to check this? Any advice greatly appreciated

I expect if you call a local friendly surveyor who does PW work, they will advise you over the phone. And probably say you don't need to serve notice etc.

Just wondering how you got on, we are positive our neighbour's extension is deeper than ours because we know the builder and previous owner that did it lowered the floor, however, new owners claim not to know and made no attempt to find out. Our builder and of course party wall surveyor said go ahead and organise Party Wall, of course both sets of neighbours (for 3 metre Party Wall not adjoining) have dissented, one said they wanted their choice of surveyor £500 than the quote I had had, we have to let them choose - whole situation is wrong, now the other neighbours is simply refusing to cooperate and the surveyor says unless he agrees to appoint him too we need to employ another surveyor on behalf of the second neighbour, which will add more cost because the first surveyor would do two at a discounted rate. I have emailed and put a note through the door, the surveyor has explained the rules and that it is relating only to foundations but the neighbour hasn't responded at all.

It seems to me Party Wall Act needs some revision when people are insisting on choosing more expensive surveyors and nobody wants to prove that it probably isn't needed at all on one side (because it is in everyone's interests to get the work not do themselves out of work), and the other refusing to engage can hold up my build. The biggest joke is both built their extensions without serving Party Wall on me!! I believe my next step is appoint a second surveyor and let him worry about access for the survey, what happens if the neighbour won't reply or agree to an appointment? Help....

We're luckily fine. The extension could have slightly smaller foundations but our structural engineer has decided to make ours the same as the house, so no deeper than next doors (1m)

We served a notice on our neighbours just to be on the safe side, when the builder started in was clear our foundations weren't going to be deeper so we told them the PWA didn't apply. They were fine.