Neighbours wants to put scaffolding on our property

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Our neighbours are doing a lot of work on their house. As part of this they would like to put scaffolding on our property. This is apparently necessary to access their roof. They will also use it to paint the side of their house at the same time.

Ahead of meeting with them to discuss it, what should we be asking of them to protect ourselves and our property? We would like something in writing and evidence of insurance? Is it the scaffolder’s insurance or the builders’ insurance that is relevant, or both?

This is a big project on a 3 storey listed building, and our property is also listed. We won’t say no to it, but the whole thing is going to be a real nuisance for us for some time. The scaffolding will remove our parking, create lots of noise and dust, and the work takes place outside of dh’s office window.

I am keen to learn from other people’s experiences, particularly bad ones!

Neighbours are fine but we are not close and relationship with their builders are already poor. Work has been going on for months and they have shown such a lack of respect for us so far, and caused a lot of damage in our garden. The neighbours themselves are not living in the property at the moment.

Maybe because if OP ever needed work done on their house, they might also need to put scaffolding on next door's property? How about a bit of empathy and give and take?

You ask for party wall agreement, insurance, dates, access, work schedule, storage of equipment including removed tiles, compensation for disturbance, making good any damage, names of builders, scaffolders, vendors and insurers. Contingency plan for bad weather.,

Ask them to repair existing damage before you can go forward. Also make sure you see the scaffolders insurance. Good luck

following....

I think this is the most correct answer yet.
The Party Wall Act is there for a reason.

This!

You'd need a copy of the builder's insurance. Take a photo of policy number etc. From experience, they won't give it to you afterwards if there's an issue.

You need the builders and the Scaffolders insurance details.

Wonder how the meeting went.

Not great. No time to update this evening but will try and do so tomorrow.

oh dear....still if its going to go badly, its better that it happens early.

So I met with one of the neighbours, surly scaffolding man, and very surly builder yesterday.
Neighbour pleasant to begin with.
Very surly builder said nothing at all and wandered off mid conversation.
Surly scaffolder had drawn a rough and ready diagram showing how he wanted to put up scaffolding which, in fairness, wouldn’t touch the outbuilding roof but would take up about half our drive. Said it would be gated off and padlocked in the evenings.

I said that I had questions and concerns, and produced my long list. When asked how long the scaffolding would be up it took several attempts to get an answer from the scaffolder. He eventually said ‘about a month but it’s a slow job’. In my head I translated that to at least 2 months.

They seemed shocked when I mentioned that it might impact our insurance and would require a change to our car insurance. I was told that ‘everyone’ claims to park off road but parks on the road. I thought they might have offered to pay for the difference in premiums.

I pointed out where dh worked, and how disruptive it would be to have the noise and disturbance.

I then asked why they couldn’t put the scaffolding up from their side. Lots of shifty looks and then they said ‘because it is more difficult and expensive’. Things were getting frostier by this stage,

At no point did they offer to pay anything or to clear up afterwards, or any accommodating gesture at all.

I concluded by saying that we would run all the details by our insurer. If they said it was alright we would consider it but would want a party wall agreement or access agreement or some form of contract with clear details about what would be allowed and when and penalty clauses for each week that the work went over the agreed dates, and I would want to see insurance certificates. I was clear that this wasn’t us agreeing, but we could perhaps move towards a negotiation of some sort.

At this point my neighbour had a face like thunder and said: that will take ages and cost us a fortune. We hoped to start on Friday!

My response was not a chance, and that’s not my problem, and that we would be very foolish to consider allowing this without a legal agreement to protect us.

Neighbour stormed off and sent a text later to say that they’d changed their minds and might be able to do from their side after all.

So, a sort of good result for us but a horrible conversation that left me feeling quite discombobulated.

I compare it to my lovely neighbour on the other side who politely asked for access to our garden to do some repairs which took just a few hours, and then came round with flowers and wine and a card (totally unexpected and unnecessary) and were genuinely appreciative.

That is a very good result! Well done for standing your ground! CF's clearly thought you would just roll over and agree. And you can see that they had no intention of any goodwill payment. I think you've dodged a bullet there... but keep your eyes open and any sign of damage call them out.

Wow, you acted entirely reasonably there. Hopefully they will now rethink the whole plan

i’d be accommodating only if the neighbours and contractors were accommodating and respectful. Sounds like neither were neither.

You have a textbook CF right there. They had assumed you would roll over and not thought about it from your pov at all. Well done.

Good for you OP.
Spanner right in their selfish little plan.

Totally agree with this! In order to have good neighbourly relationships both sides have to be reasonable.

You did the right thing by insisting on a legal agreement. At the very least the neighbour should have agreed that a party wall contract is essential. Better to annoy the neighbours at this stage, than to have thousands of pounds worth of damage done.

Well done OP. Handled beautifully

Well done op.

Good result, well done, let them have the disruption and higher costs, they knew they were trying it on. I'd still contact your insurance just to let them know if there is any damage.

Well done op. What a great result 👏

"Neighbour stormed off and sent a text later to say that they’d changed their minds and might be able to do from their side after all."

Translation:

Neighbours are cunts.

Whether they can/t do the scaffold was never your problem, that they were pushy about the Friday start date and now can suddenly do it all from their own side proves they are CFC's of the highest order.

Well done and now never back down or compromise with these horrid people.

Excellent work OP…

I then asked why they couldn’t put the scaffolding up from their side. Lots of shifty looks and then they said ‘because it is more difficult and expensive’.

That’s the crux of it. I’ve no idea why you let it carry on past that point though, going on about contacting your insurer and reverting. Surely this gave you the ideal opening to say ‘well, that’s excellent news, problem sorted for you, you can do that’. If they then went on you just say ‘sorry, I’m just not seeing how this is my problem, seems we all have a solution’. No issue at all as you are not stopping them doing anything.