poor workmanship when raising party wall

[PiaC]

Our neighbour did a loft extension and their builder has done an aesthetically poor job of building up the party wall. It is slanting upwards because the coping stones are too short. Their party wall surveyor is saying its structurally sound and we should not have any issues with the wall but we do not want to live with a wonky wall. Are we required to go with what their surveyor is saying i.e. live a wall which shows poor workmanship but is structurally stable? Eventually we have to pay the neighbour for raising the party wall if we also build into our loft but I would not be happy to pay for the wall as-is and would want to get it fixed. It is a shared structure and the neighbours builder should be fixing the wall ideally.

Have mentioned this to our neighbour already but will talk to them once they move back in.

Just trying to get a feel for what is acceptable and not in terms of raising the party wall. Does the party wall act make a distinction between aesthetics and structural stability?

We need a picture.

I can’t visualise this at all, agree a picture is needed.

@OneForTheToad @ChopSue

@ChopSue @OneForTheToad

Not sure I can see a problem. Can you highlight the issue on the picture? Is it supposed to match elsewhere?

its turned upwards along the coping

Can you confirm the wall is actually straight?

This is a slightly different angle. Click on the image as the issue is more visible when the picture is zoomed in. The surveyor doesn't seem to think the builder has done a great job but then he is the neighbours surveyor.

Sorry meant to say the neighbours surveyor seems to think the builder has done a great job.

It looks a bit odd. I don’t know what problem they have solved by changing the angle of the brickwork. Usually you’d just lay them flat and cut the end of the brick at the correct angle.
also I don’t know why they’ve kicked up the top coping stone and not just used a disc cutter to shorten the last of the verticals ones.
It is structurally ok though.

@OneForTheToad thanks for you response.

It looks better in a picture as its 2D. It is worse in reality.

Since we are to eventually pay 50% for this wall I am just not happy with the way it looks. If it were my builder I would have got them to fix it but the problem is our neighbour moved away for the duration of the works and did not inspect the wall until all works were completed.

I thought it was the case in party wall agreements that you could appoint your own surveyor and pass on the costs to the other party rather than use their own surveyor.

In this instance could you state you are not happy to use their own surveyor and will get your own done and send them the invoice. Not sure if once you have agreed to using their surveyor that you can go back on it though.

I suppose this highlights the reason for using your own person rather than rely on trusting someone who has the other parties best interest at heart

Technically the brick is trespassing, so you could insist it is cut back or re-built with a straight wall (coping is too but that would be too petty, and presumably you agreed / expected the coping)

I'd ask to speak to the actual builder to understand why they have gone to more effort to build the bricks out at the end like that. it seems odd to me, and i wonder what the purpose it.

@Tessasanderson we used our own surveyor. Now the work has been completed and the neighbour's surveyor came to do an end-of-works inspection and because I had mentioned the wall to our neighbour she also had him look at the party wall. When I raised concerns he said structurally it is fine and we should not have any issues which indicates to me that if we were to raise it as a party wall dispute he will say its fine anyway and to make it worse our surveyor is in agreement (but he was quite useless anyway)! So I need to talk to my neighbour and sort this out separately. Did some research and there are some regulations around building workmanship and specifically around laying a brick wall.

I have taken some pictures of walls done properly in and area and will share these with our neighbour. At the very least she needs to get her builder to explain why he decided to lay the wall like he did. Her builder also raised the party wall on the other side which is perfectly straight with bricks laid perpendicular to each other as expected.

@Rollercoaster1920 but we've agreed to raise the party wall so it couldn't be trespassing could it? The surveyor we appointed did not even advise us that we could have potentially refused this...another story for another day!

Raising the party wall doesn't include extending it into your land! What was on the schedule of works?
Bizarre that they made the other side straight, surely that strengthens the case for them to come back and make it good.

Is your Party Wall surveyor regulated?