The next stage: Quoting and Party wall agreement
Party wall agreement
I started with the builder quotes but in reality I should have started with the party wall at the same time. Overall it took about two month to complete this process with our next door neighbour, but can be done quicker or longer depending on their cooperation.
There is a strict time line how you notify your neighbour about the works that will be at the party wall or around it. Not going to give any links just google it and find the most reputable company in your area to talk to. In essence your neighbour doesn’t have rights to stop it happening but they can make it more expensive and a lengthy process in the worst case.
Initially I thought that I’m going to save myself a bit of money and do the agreement myself and if you get the neighbours agreement you can start the works almost immediately. It took a while to get the signature from our elderly next door neighbour and some persuasion by ourselves and few our other street neighbours including retired architect who happens to live on our street too. However we decided to go with a “Party wall schedule of condition” survey instead of just a simple agreement as that in theory would protect yourselves from any unreasonable claims in the future in case if any disputes arise. The surveyor made pictures of the adjourning property and verbal description of any observed faults so when the works are completed we wouldn’t have any claims that didn’t arise from the party wall works. Essentially it’s worth paying little extra for your own protection IMHO.
We didn’t go for the most expensive option: “Party wall award” whereas you each appoint different surveyors and draw up agreement of any damages that will have to be compensated.
One thing to note that the agreement is valid for one year hence you need to have it in place when the works will actually start, some times your builder might not have availability that year so hence you need to do both stages in parallel.
Word of caution on the Party wall agreement…
Little did I know that your neighbour who has lived next door since you have moved in (more than 10 years!), doesn’t actually owns the house! As my building works were progressing had a knock on the door from my next door neighbour advising that her daughter who turns out to be the actual owner of the house might object and I might hear from her soon! Two lessons learned for me:
- When addressing the Party wall notice always put The Owner of the property not the name of the person who lives there and you think might the owner!
- Do online check in the land registry for the property in question as that will show the actual owner and registered address if different from the property itself.
On the bright side – since the works were almost done and no party wall works were actually taking place nothing happened and the actual owner didn’t even appear.