Party Wall Agreement

[NewOnMumsN3t]

Hello fellow Mumsnetters,

I need to serve notice for party wall agreement to my adjoining neighbour prior to commencing building works.
I understand you can either do this yourself or instruct a surveyor.
My plan is to serve notice myself and only instruct a surveyor in the event the neighbour should dissent.

Has anyone had any experience serving party wall notice themselves?

Thank you in advance.

Your neighbour has the right to appoint a surveyor of their choice, so it won't be up to you. I think it is likely that they will do in order to ensure that your plans are not detrimental to their property.

Sorry, I didn't clarify. Is it you that is doing the building work?

@endofthelinefinally did you read my post at all ?

@endofthelinefinally again, did you read my post at all ? The answer is in my first sentence.
Baffling !

Your post isn't actually clear. Are you doing the work? If so, your neighbour will in all likelihood want a surveyor of their choice and you will be obliged to pay for it.

@TemporarilyCantDoMyself i have said so in my first sentence

Ok. Hope it all goes well.

As I understand it, from experience, you can personally serve the party wall notice. They then have the right (but not the obligation) to request the appointment of a surveyor. IIRC you can propose a particular surveyor, but they have the right of appointment. Costs are down to you. Obviously the best outcome is for you to serve the notice, perhaps discuss it with them, and for them to be happy to accept your plans. But honestly, they would be better advised to require a surveyor’s input.

You can get a template from the internet to serve the notice yourself, which is what I did (a few years back so can’t point you to it unfortunately).

We have just done this, the easiest thing to do is just have a conversation with your neighbours to be honest.

I used the template available from .GOV to serve the notice myself. We are friendly with our neighbours so I let them know it would come through the letter box. They said they'd like to appoint a surveyor and get a party wall agreement done, but were happy for us to choose so we used a joint surveyor.

So in answer to your question yes it's easy to serve notice yourself using the template

@friedaddedchilli thank you that is very helpful. Appreciate you taking time to read and respond.

@Flyingdolphins thank you very much. Yes I saw the template as well on the .gov site. Good to know others have tried it themselves too. I just wanted to ensure I am not doing something that MUST be undertaken by a surveyor at this stage. Also spoke to my neighbours today to inform them so it doesn't come as a surprise.
Thank you for taking the time to read and respond, appreciate it.

Thank you @VideoVox , much appreciated.

We did it with just a template but we have a fab neighbour who didn’t care less! We did chat through the plans first and then have her the form to fill out!

Guess you could try just doing one yourself and see what your neighbour says!

Your neighbours would be bonkers not to appoint a surveyor if you are doing work on a party wall. Failure to do so will impact on their buildings insurance.

Yes you can serve it yourself, the government website templates are designed for this purpose

Speak to your neighbours first and explain your plans. Many would just agree depending on the work and the house, and this avoids thousands in costs. For example we had to notify neighbours that we would dig foundations about 2m from their wall (modern property so no reason to think it would cause a problem).

To be fair, if your work damaged their property, you or builders insurance would quite likely have to pay no matter whether there was a survey or not. I mean, if their house fell into our foundations I don’t think they would need a survey to prove what happened. Different story maybe for an old or quirky house that develops cracks in the wall, so it depends on the circumstances

if they do want a survey, at least try to keep it amicable and have a joint survey (half the cost)

How would it affect their building insurance?