Costs of Party Wall Surveyors - Nightmare

[Petitebird]

I have been involved in a PWA "negotiation " between my surveyor and the adjoining owner's surveyor for 3 years! My neighbour (AO) has made it clear she does not want me to build a side return unless it is like hers. Our houses are pretty bog standard Victorian terraced houses and I am extending into side return and loft. AO appointed a surveyor who has strung queries out for 3 years!. Plans approved by council etc. The costs are over £10k - which I have to pay. AO's PW surveyor took several months to provide time sheets for his fees and now says that he charges in 15 minute units eg he looks at something for 5 mins and charges me for 15 minutes. Is this a usual the fee structure for PW surveyors? My Surveyor says it is not unknown that surveyors charge in 15 minute units. I have never been sent any details of how the AO party wall surveyor charges until he produced these outrageous charges. We are in Wandsworth. Also he constantly comes up with issues in a drip feed manner thus charging more as he says he just noticed X or Y and spent more time looking at the issue. Any help on whether this guy's fee structure is usual would be great. Even after 3 years looks like a third surveyor will have to be called in. 😠

Why, oh why are you jumping through your neighbours's hoops. You have planning permission just get on and build!

Is this a usual the fee structure for PW surveyors? My Surveyor says it is not unknown that surveyors charge in 15 minute units. You already have an answer, your surveyor has told you it is not unusual.

This has dragged on for a very long time, the third surveyor sounds the next logical step.

It is frustrating but take your surveyor's advice and follow the process.

Is the PW surveyor also their son / daughter 😂

@Petitebird they cannot stop you from building, especially as you’ve already got PP.

Your surveyor sounds equally useless if they’ve allowed this to continue for three years to be honest! Instruct your surveyor to give AO the appropriate notice that you will be starting your build and do just that.

You certainly shouldn’t be in the realms of a third surveyor before you’ve even started the build! For context, our neighbours tried to insist on quite time across the whole site for a few hours in the middle of the day so her toddler could sleep - we instead agreed that no works on the party wall itself would be done during this time (noisy works elsewhere would be avoided where possible but could legally continue).

I would just have gone ahead and started building. I believe they can get an injunction but they'd have to have the money to take it to court and for what? By the time it was listed and heard the build would probably have been finished!

There's lots of scammers who do PW stuff. We helped someone out who was being taken for a ride and it turned out the PW surveyor had been kicked out of RICS and had several CCJs against him. He was just grifting for as much money as possible.

PW are a nightmare and AO surveyors love it because they effectively write themselves a blank cheque when they get involved. They will encourage your AO to ask for lots of extras, and make it all take as long as possible so they can run up their bill. I have heard of them charging by hour rather than for 15 minutes,

10k is ridiculous and just shows that PW doesn’t work well for domestic properties and just takes for a ride honest building owners who want to do the right thing.

ask your surveyor to negotiate it down? Ask for copies of emails etc and evidence of how they have spent the time they are charging you for. If they are experienced enough to be charging that much then it shouldn’t be taking a long time for them to review simple drawings, send emails of a few sentences. Their costs have to be reasonable and they need to regulate themselves accordingly. If you get a third surveyor involved, your neighbours risk ending up paying the difference. 3 years is ridiculous. Tell them not to record any more time on the project and get on with your build.

Thanks , Hevasparkle, for your response. I have asked for his file and he has refused on the basis that he "does not consider it good practice" to disclose his file! He also says he is not charging for correspondence and disbursements! My surveyor says he doesn't know if the AO has to disclose his file or bit. These PW surveyors are a shower TBH. Not sure if complaining to RICS about the delay and costs - his time sheet shows months when he did nothing - is worth it.

Surveyors do indeed have to comply with a code of conduct with RICS, so please do make a complaint if you feel you've been hard done by. They will follow it up.

Just refuse to pay it until he can adequately show you why the costs are so excessive @Petitebird

Tell him he’s welcome to take you to small claims (or not so small claims in this case!) as what you’re asking is reasonable under the circumstances.

I would tell him to sue me for the money but he is refusing to sign off the PWA until I agree to pay his fees. Without sight of the file and only having sight of an excel sheet that could bear no relation to an actual file - I cannot see if his fees are supported by work done. 😡

He's a con man. Complain immediately to the relevant ombudsman. Chatgpt is very good at formatting letters like this for maximum impact.

Why have you yourself be bullied?

What are the actual implications for not having the PWA signed off @Petitebird?

Ours dragged on for absolutely ages. Needed the neighbour to agree the line of the fence before we could get it signed off, neighbour took absolute months to do so. I couldn’t actually figure out what the implications were of it never actually being signed off… It’s fulfilled its purpose by that point surely? And it’s a pretty toothless Act to start with!

I think you can complain to the RICS who deal with fee disputes? He has to be transparent with fees.

What are the penalties if it's not signed off and you go ahead? I'd probably call his bluff on this.