Party wall notice

Work out which notice, and how many of them

The work decides the notice. Cutting into the shared wall, raising it or taking out a chimney breast on it is a party structure notice under section 3. A brand new wall on or at the boundary where nothing stands is a line of junction notice under section 1. Digging near the neighbour's building and going deeper than its foundations is an adjacent excavation notice under section 6. A loft conversion with a rear extension often needs two of them, and each goes to every adjoining owner separately, so a flat above and a flat below are two notices, not one.

Count back from the start date, not forward from today

A party structure notice has to be served at least two months before the work begins; a line of junction notice and an adjacent excavation notice at least one month. Those periods run from service, not from posting, so allow for the post as well. Counting back from the day the builder wants to start is the only way to see whether you still have room, and it is the calculation people get wrong, because the notice also lapses if the work has not begun within twelve months of it being served.

Expect the silence, and plan for the award

An adjoining owner has fourteen days to consent in writing. Say nothing and the Act deems a dispute to have arisen, which means surveyors and an award, whether or not anybody is actually annoyed. That is the fork the whole job turns on: a consent keeps it a letter, a dissent makes it an award with a schedule of condition attached and fees on both sides that you will usually be paying. Serving early, and serving something a neighbour can read, is the cheapest thing you can do.

Expect a counter notice where a chimney breast or a raised wall is involved

An adjoining owner served with a party structure notice may, within a month, serve a counter notice under section 4 asking for the work to be done differently for their benefit: chimney copings, breasts, jambs or flues built or left in a particular way, or a wall raised to carry something of theirs later. The building owner must comply unless doing so would injure them, cause unnecessary inconvenience or unnecessary delay, and the adjoining owner pays for the extra they asked for. A counter notice is not a dissent and it is not a dispute; it is a change to the specification, and a job that took a fortnight to reply to it has lost a fortnight. Reading the notice you send with the neighbour's likely counter notice in mind, and offering the copings and the flue detail before they ask, is the quiet way to keep the timetable.

Serve every owner, in a way you can prove

A notice is served on owners, not on addresses, and the Act's owner includes the freeholder and anyone holding a lease longer than a year. A converted house next door with two long leaseholders and a freeholder is three adjoining owners and three notices of each kind. Section 15 says how it reaches them: by hand, by post to their usual or last known address, to the registered office of a company, or by description to the owner of the premises where the name genuinely cannot be found, and electronically only where they have agreed in writing to accept notices that way. Serve by a route you can evidence, and file the copy with its date and the proof of delivery, because a challenge to service is a challenge to every date that follows.

Keep the file: what went out, when, and what came back

By the time an award is being drafted, or a crack is being argued over, the only questions are what was served, on whom, on what date, and what the reply was. Keep the notices as sent, the proof of service, the consent letters or the absence of them, the appointment letters and the award, together and dated. The record on this site holds the notices you served against the address for exactly that reason, so the dates the surveyors need are the dates you actually kept rather than the ones you remember.