Does my neighbour need a party wall agreement

[Hampshire77]

Wise people of mumsnet, I need your wealth of wisdom please.

I have just moved house and my new neighbour (not adjoining) has happily told me that he is having an extension built shortly.
(Long story short - various delays in the house purchase meant that solicitors and I missed the planning application, not happy but nothing can be done now so know I have to live with it)
This extension is an unwelcome surprise but with planning permission granted there is nothing I can do to object but I do want to make it clear to my neighbour that I'm not going to be a walkover about it.

The proposed extension will be a 2 storey build which comes out to be inches away from the boundary and my driveway. My driveway goes up the side of my house so their proposed extension will be 2.5metres away from my house wall so I've been told they will need to get a party wall agreement.

Reading up on it and yes I think they do need this agreement but I think my main question is - do I need to prompt them into getting this or do I wait for something to be dropped into my letter box or worst case, coming home from work one day to find workmen and builders on my driveway?

If the latter is the case, then can I demand work stops immediately? Do I need to instruct a solicitor?

Sorry I have so many scenarios running round in my head so wanted to run this past anyone who had experience first hand and can advise what I need to do next.

Thank you so much for reading

You can check by reading the act. I think excavation for foundations within 3m of a property requires it.

More usefully though: of they are building so close to the boundary have they asked for for access? The party wall act can mean they force access onto your property to build a wall up to the boundary. What marks the boundary and who owns it?

Forgot to add. Ask them, otherwise they might start work without and that's a pain. Communication is important, even with cheeky neighbors.

@Rollercoaster1920 they've gone very quiet since gleefully telling me they were building an extension - nothing mentioned about access required, scaffolding etc.

At the moment there is a slight change in elevation which I think marks the boundary - ie their current drive is around a foot higher than mine, with a very low wall their side.
I'm still waiting for copies of land registry, deeds etc to be sent by my solicitor as only completed on this house in January - I'm being told a 6-12 month delay on documents at present.

Something to consider is will they require access to your property to facilitate their build? (To erect scaffolding for e.g).

Do you want builders traipsing on your property? Potentially storing stuff on your property?

Do you have the right to deny access?

I don't know the answers to this BTW.

What did the seller's say about the boundary? Where is it. Who owns that retaining wall?

A party wall agreement is just a legal document which binds the party doing the work to ensure they work within regulations and that if they cause any damage to the party wall they will rectify it. You can literally download a blank version online and sign it, you don't actually need a solicitor. I get that you are annoyed that an extension is being built when you didn't know about it but I wouldn't go out of your way to be difficult about it, that's not creating the best start of a neighbourly relationship. Get them to show you the plans for the extension and ask some questions about who is doing the work. If they've had an architect draw it up, and they're getting a local reputable company to do the work, and it will be signed off by building regs then it sounds like it will be done properly so don't make the process harder than it has to be.

The sellers stated the back fence was owned by the neighbours, so by following the line of the fence - the neighbour owns the very low wall that currently separates our driveways.

The plans on the council website aren't clear if they are building exactly to the wall or just shy but they will be building within 3 meters of my house.

I thought access only had to be granted via my property with a party wall agreement in place for essential maintenance - for an extension or new structure then I don't have to grant access. Additionally they can only erect scaffolding with my permission on my land (and for which I can charge them a 'rental' fee for inconvenience?)

@acuppatea not trying to make the process harder than it needs to be, just trying to understand where I stand and who needs to start the ball rolling with the party wall process but appreciate your response.

Its just quite a big shock to find out I now have 6 months of disturbance that I hadn't planned on after a very stressful time in trying to buy this house in the first place and now lose a portion of light to the side of my house.

They sound excited about it. Gleefully is a bit mean.

I also think your solicitors were negligent in not doing one final check on planning prior to exchange/completion taking into account how extraordinarily protracted the purchase process has been.

You'd probably have grounds for complaint/some form of compensation here - definitely worth pursuing.

To me, it sounds like you do want to make this as difficult as possible.

Where you stand is that your neighbours are perfectly entitled to extend their property, and a decent neighbour will recognise that and will reasonably accommodate it.

We've lived in our property 20+ years and extended twice. Both houses either side have extended in that time too. I've signed PWA for both neighbours , both neighbours have signed PWA for us. I've been granted permission for scaffolding on next door's property, and I've given permission for scaffolding in my for next door's extension. Everything has been restored to normal at the end of the building works. No drama whatsoever.

We've all been happy and excited for each other, and genuinely interested in seeing what each other have done. Yes, there's be an amount of noise and disruption, but that's part of living near others, and in the scheme of things, it's short lived.

You are blowing this up out of all proportion. It's a very normal thing to do, and who knows, you might even want to extend your house one day!

A party wall agreement is there to protect the OP from problems if the neighbour and their contractors don't respect her property and repair any damage though. I've had a neighbour take the piss and damage my property. I really don't need the aggro of having to get quotes to fix, then take him to the small claims court to get the damages.

decent neighbours are great - the trouble is that there seems to be fewer and fewer of them!

Asking for a Party Wall award is not being awkward or making your neighbours life difficult. Its about protecting your interests - helping to make sure the extension does not cause damage to your property and is not unnecessarily disruptive during the build stage.

In some ways its helpful to both sides as it will set out things like hours of operation of the site, whether access to the neighbouring property is allowed and on what basis etc. By putting it in black and white I think it can actually help reduce bad feeling as both sides know what is and isn't allowed.

To answer one of the OP's question, the onus is on your neighbour to serve the required notices which will set out your options. It might, however, pay to be pro-active and approach them and ask when yo can expect them to do so, as it lets them know you are aware of your rights.

Bottom line, in my view, if you have good neighbours they shouldn't be put out by you asking for a party wall award. If they are put out, then you're probably right to have asked for one.

I think (but please check) they only need a PWA if the foundations are going to be deeper than existing foundations. Unless they know that already (unlikely) they may say they don't need one. They may serve one just to be on the safe side. If they start the works without one, you can't insist on one until you know for sure they need one (I.e. you know the depth of foundations). You're not in a position at this point to insist on a PWA.

Seems like a storm in a tea cup, your neighbour is building an extension on his land with planning permission. The solicitor for your purchase should have known and informed you, but it really makes no difference they would almost certainly have still got planning permission if they were applying now, unless you wouldn't have bought the property if you knew.

You can try and make life difficult for them, but what's the point? As far as I can see the party wall act barely applies in these circumstance, as said above if they are digging deeper foundations than yours they may need to inform you in advance and in that case you could get a surveyor to check for any movement of your property caused by the works (at their expense?), but it seems very unlikely deep foundations would be necessary for a normal residential extension. And they should inform you if or when they need access to your property, but that would be general courtesy anyway.

I wouldn't allow any neighbour to access my land or put scaffolding on my property. Their extension is for their benefit not mine and I would not facilitate them causing me inconvenience for months and preventing me from using my own driveway because their builders were on it!

Everyone thinks it's a right to have an extension but imo no one has a right to build if it requires being on someone else's land to do it (barring essential repairs).

So I would see a solicitor and get my neighbours notified that I wasn't giving permission for access.

How frustrating OP - your solicitors definitely dropped the ball there. Your neighbour probably appeared gleeful (excited) as they thought you already knew about it - they had no way of knowing that you didn’t.

The PWA isn’t, as a previous poster suggests, there to set out hours of work. It can be if both parties agree but its’ foremost aim us is to give you protection for your property. In reality it’s pretty toothless, but that’s your lot.

We were the builders in your scenario and our party wall neighbours did their utmost to be as painful as possible. They did their best to delay, postpone and obfuscate our build, having also already tried to get our planning application rejected. And this is with us being open with plans very early on… They tried to demand stipulations when we hadn’t even gone to tender for builders yet - we were at least a year out from breaking ground at this point. It has utterly destroyed neighbourly relations and we’re one step away from formal complaints to the council, of the ilk that would need to be disclosed when selling. Don’t be this guy. It’s not worth it.

If you have genuine cause to think they’ll try to go ahead without a PWA (unlikely as you can halt their works which will cost them significantly) then you could email and just say thanks for the update on their build, you’d been unaware of this, but that you’ve been advised to have your own PW surveyor (they pay for this). Say that you’ll send through your PE surveyors details once they’ve formally served you notices, as appreciate they’re probably quite busy etc etc etc.

Thank you all for the constructive feedback, it is appreciated.
I want to be proactive with this so will pop round during the week and ask them how they're progressing and when they think they will be serving the party wall award- firstly to make sure they are aware they need one and secondly so we can agree on what they can and can't access from my side of their build.

Thanks again all

If you've got a driveway between your house and Nextdoor I'm not sure why their extension is such a problem.

We have just gone through the same with our new neighbours. The building work has been going on for a year but it's really not been that disruptive even with DH working from home. We stayed friendly and if there was ever a problem we spoke to the builder who always rectified it.

We did sign a party wall agreement and were happy to do so.

The thought of having major building works going on is quite worrying but we've found that the reality isn't that bad if the builders/neighbours are considerate which thankfully for us has been the case.

My sister is trying to get a very non controversial extension done on her house and the neighbour has been obstructive from the first moment they mentioned their plans. It's laughable as the neighbour has done the exact same work to his house but has started up a local campaign with the residents association to stop my sister doing her's. She says if he succeeds in blocking her planning she will demolish and build a huge grand designs style house with a basement like some of the other's on her estate have done.

If their property is higher than yours, what makes you think the foundations will be going lower than yours?

Please, please, actually read the Gov.UK guidance on the Act.

Asking for a Party Wall award is not being awkward or making your neighbours life difficult. Its about protecting your interests - helping to make sure the extension does not cause damage to your property and is not unnecessarily disruptive during the build stage.

Completely agree with the above and when the time comes for works, I would absolutely insist on a PWA for protection of both properties. However, planning being granted does not mean they are ready to start work - we had over 18 months from the time planning was granted until we actually did work (pandemic played a huge part for 12 months of this). PWA was put in place after we had narrowed down the builders, confirmed availability and finalised cashflow for the project. There was no point paying out for expensive surveyors if we weren’t ready to proceed.

Politely ask for an estimated timeline on when they hope to start and work back from there - PWA took around 5 weeks from our experience.

Our neighbour managed to build their entire two storey extension over-hand! I wish they HAD asked to come on my side (and we would have let them - always been friendly with them) because the finish of the wall they we have to look at would have likely been better.

I bet your neighbours love you 🙄

And the irony is that a PWA would make it a prosecutable offence to refuse access to someone entitled to under the Act 🤣