NC as this is very specific and outing.
We are coming towards the end of an extension and renovation and I wanted some advice regarding party wall. Our house is semi-detached and we had party wall agreement in place prior to initiating work. Our adjoining neighbour instructed his own surveyor which we paid for as per guidelines.
This neighbour is being particularly difficult over insignificant matters, most of which are not even in the scope of our project. He has had a number of minor complaints which he allegedly reported to the council enforcement - we were not concerned by this as we have built exactly as per our approved plans. We did not hear from council for almost 3 months (we strongly suspect he didn't actually contact them) and in that time, he then approached us to request we resolve it between ourselves (something we had requested to do from the outset). The outcome of this was that we have a written agreement in place in respect to his minor complaints. We have made sure we stick to our part of this agreement but he subsequently requested to add in an additional clause which we declined (we have already been far more accommodating than we needed to me to his request in the original agreement)
He approached us about apparent changes to floorboards and wall, stating this is something we need to rectify under party wall. We have visited with our builder and read the original surveyor's report to ascertain what he was asking for. With regards to his request - there is one thing that we would certainly be responsible for (and we had already planned to rectify anyway) - the other issues are loud floorboards - nothing we have done could have caused his floorboards to creak. We have not touched the joists on the first floor of our house and this is where he is claiming the changes have occurred. To avoid expensive surveyor fees, we are happy for our builder to rectify this - it would cost less than the call out and we would prefer to maintain relations as much as we can. However, he is now trying to use the previous issue where he wants to add in an additional clause as leverage. His current stance is that if we agree to it, he will allow us to resolve party wall informally, otherwise he wants to get surveyors involved.
Is anyone aware if there is something we can issue that makes him liable to surveyor costs in light of the fact that he is complaining about issues that we are certain have not been caused by us. He essentially wants everything his way and is trying to use the surveyor cost as leverage to get his way.
(I am trying to be a little bit vague but his request that he is using as leverage involves him making permanent alterations to our property which sits on our land because he would prefer it looked a different way despite him agreeing to the item in writing before we purchased it)