Party wall agreement - legally binding?

[LondonNQT]

We’re in the process of getting a party wall agreement from our adjoining neighbour for an attic conversion and kitchen extension.

They chose to appoint their own party wall surveyor - 8 months before we had even served them notices... No issues with them appointing their own, as is their right.

For context, they have been difficult throughout this process. They’re a solicitor/barrister couple (lucky us) and very entitled - I’ve put her nose out before by saying no when she was trying to get me to do something she felt needed doing on the shared bin alley. They also put in a comment on our planning application for an extension on the opposite side of our property to them (which doesn’t form part of the party wall agreement). They were concerned about the impact of light on their property supposedly; this extension can in no way affect their light.

She was due with their second child last summer (when they thought we would start the build). Cue long emotional to me with a list of demands requests such as we had to agree to 2 hours of quiet time each day so the baby could sleep (can sort of understand this one), we must should put off the build until the September so they could enjoy their garden. We did not engage with this process and they were asked to direct all questions of this nature to our architect.

We’re now getting into the nitty gritty of the party wall which, thankfully, is all being sorted by the two surveyors (our architect is acting for our property). The architect has just informed me that they/their surveyor have tried to include a clause stipulating that we wouldn’t do ANY noisy works at all on the property between 13:00 and 14:30 to allow for nap time, not just no noisy works on the party wall itself.

Had our architect not picked this up would that have been legally binding despite it being outside the scope of the Party Wall Agreement?

I’m sure a solicitor will come along, but we had to agree to working hours on ours and our neighbours could have compensation if we didn’t adhere to it, our working hours were 8.30 to 5.30

Hmmmm it’s a tough one with nap times. I’m sure your builders could do quiet jobs but our neighbours once complained that they could hear music at 8.25am (the builders have turned on the radio) so I’d doubt you could agree on the level of noise.

I guess the issue is they could delay your build by not agreeing to all of this. Could you agree to one hour?

In actual fact thinking on it, we probably would have tried to have avoided that lunch nap at all costs.

Don’t forget to get the number of visits by their surveyor agreed, it’s a tricky business because their client is your neighbours but you pay the costs. We agreed the visits (eg start and end) and then only in material circumstances would they come and do a site visit. Lots of horror stories of the neighbours surveyors do visits and then you getting large bills etc

Do not agree to this. It will be massively limiting to your builders and will almost certainly lead to a dispute. There is no definition of what constitutes noisy works which is why no one includes these clauses. The agreement is only ever about actual hours worked.

The builders will stick to a full hour for lunch and rigidly stick to it wherever possible. So they will have that hour. But I still wouldn’t put it in writing as there will occasionally be things that crop up that need to be completed and overrun the hour.