Of everything a party wall job produces, this is the document that earns its keep. It is a room by room, elevation by elevation record of the adjoining owner's property as it stands before the work begins, with photographs and dated notes on the cracks, stains and defects already there. Two years later, when a neighbour points at a crack, the schedule is the difference between a conversation and an argument. It costs a morning and it is worth doing even where the neighbour has consented and no award is needed.
What is a schedule of condition, exactly
A factual record, not an opinion. It describes what is there: hairline cracking above a door, damp staining to a chimney breast, a lifted floor tile, a gate that already binds. Each item is located, described and photographed, and the whole is dated. It makes no judgement about causes and offers no valuation. That restraint is what makes it useful, because a record that argued a case would be contested and a record that simply describes is very hard to dispute.
Why schedules of condition are taken before anything moves
Because their entire value is chronological. A schedule taken after work has started proves nothing about what the work caused. This is the reason to sort out the notice early rather than late: a schedule needs an appointment with the neighbour, and a neighbour who was served two months ago is far more likely to let a surveyor in than one served last week. Where an award is made, the schedule is attached to it; where consent was given, agree one between yourselves and both keep a copy.
How a schedule of conditions differs from a survey
A survey is commissioned by somebody buying or maintaining a building and reports on its condition, its defects and often its value. A schedule of condition is commissioned as evidence, records what exists on a date, and takes no view. They look superficially similar and serve opposite purposes, and asking a surveyor for the wrong one is a common and expensive mix up. Nothing on this site is aimed at a homebuyer's survey.
What the schedule looks like on the page
A good schedule is boring to read, and that is the point. It opens with the property, the date, the weather if the outside is being recorded, and who was present. Then it runs room by room in a fixed order, usually front to back and bottom to top, with each room headed and each surface taken in turn: ceiling, walls named by compass point or by the room they adjoin, floor, windows, doors, fittings. Every observation carries a photograph number, and the photographs are numbered to match, so a reader can go from the line about the crack to the picture of it without hunting. A room in which nothing was found says so in as many words. The last page lists what was not inspected and why, because a room the neighbour would not open needs recording as a gap rather than passed over in silence.
Questions people ask about schedule of condition
Who pays for the schedule of condition?
The building owner, in the ordinary case, as part of the cost of the award. Where the neighbour consented and no award was made, whoever commissions it, and it is usually worth the building owner paying.
How much of the neighbour's property should be recorded?
Every room that could plausibly be affected, plus the elevations facing the work. The room left out is the room the crack appears in, and adding one costs minutes on site.
Can I take the photographs myself?
You can, and it is much better than nothing where the neighbour consented. Where an award is being made the surveyors will take their own, and theirs is the one attached to the award.
Should the schedule cover my own property too?
It is sensible, and it costs little more while the surveyor is on site. Your side of the wall can crack from the work as readily as the neighbour's, and a claim against a contractor is measured against a record in the same way a neighbour's claim against you is.