Anyone know about shared party wall's and needing permission to knock one down?? sorry long story,,

[worleyhurley]

Hi,
we have a problem with our neighbour and im not sure if what they have done is legal or if they should have had a survery done or something?
ok, we are in a small terrace, our neighbours is the end house. we both have 2 up 2 down, last year they knocked the front room and back room in to one large room. the wall they knocked down comes off our shared party wall. they then also knocked their wall through upstairs, directly above the wall they knocked down downstairs, this wall also comes off our shared party wall.
it turns out they didnt have a "proper" builder do the work a local handyman/jack-of-all trades did the work.
if they did have a survey done they never came to out house and asked to inspect our walls. At the time of them doing this work, they never informed us they would be knocking walls down and we have started to get cracks along the ceiling scince this has gone on.
they are not the friendliest of neighbours so we didnt complain about the noise at the time. however, it is now after watching a property ladder thing i am wondering if they are suppossed to have had a survery done before knocking all these wals down that were joined on to our shared wall?

sorry, that was such a long post

[LIZS]

I don't think they would ahve eneded a Party Wall agreement as it is n't actually work to the party wall iyswim . There are probably buildings regs which should have applied - ie steels to reinforce any supporting walls removed. Can you speak to the Building Regs department at the council to see if they were involved ?

[Carmenere]

If they have taken down supporting walls they will have big trouble unless they replaced them with RSJ's. Just give the building regs a call and ask.

[witchandchips]

phone the council and check, i have a strong feeling that they should have had their plans checked by a council inspector and got your permission (although you would need to have reasonable grounds to refuse).

[titchy]

Yes they should have had a party wall agreement drawn up. Anything that COULD affect a party wall ought to have one, adn obviously removing a wall that joins a part wall could (and seems to have) affected you.

Is it worth getting in a surveyor and getting an expert opinion on whether the cracks were caused by their shoddy building work.

Incidentally they must be mad to remove what is presumably a load bearing wall without a quaified builder, party wall agreement and building reg approval.

[worleyhurley]

thankyou for your replies/answers.
i think i will make a trip tomorrow to check with the council what to do if anything. they have been knocking the place about left right and centre. dp wasnt pleased when he was on nights and they started knocking down the wall next to the bedroom, with not at least letting us know they were going to making so much noise!! they knew dp works nights also.