How to Avoid getting Stuck with a Party Wall Surveyor

So finally you have settled on a particular Party Wall Surveyor and he has provided you with the 'appointment paperwork'. Look carefully at the paperwork and you will see that there are two parts to the it, 'authorisation' and 'appointment'. But what do these two mean to you the Building Owner looking to undertake works?

At this early stage before Notices have been served on the Adjoining Owners, it is impossible to be in 'dispute' with the neighbours and without there being a dispute there can not be an 'appointment' of a Party Wall Surveyor to resolve the 'dispute'. So the only appointment that can be valid is a future one contingent on the Adjoining Owner's subsequent 'dissent'. Thus the wording will state something to the effect, that 'in the event that following service of Notice, the Adjoining Owner dissents to the works, thus creating a dispute, then the said Surveyor will be the appointed Party Wall Surveyor'. In other words,  by asking you to fill out 'appointment paperwork' the Surveyor is now asking you commit to the later automatic appointment of himself as Surveyor, should a dispute later materialise in relation to the served Notice. 

The second part of the paperwork is for you the Building Owner to provide the Surveyor with the 'authorisation' so he can serve Notices on your behalf. Given, that Notices are technically served by the Building Owner, providing authorisation to the Surveyor to serve Notice on your behalf is usually a good idea, because it should hopefully ensure that the Notices are served correctly. The authorisation of a Surveyor to serve Notice is therefore not controversial and is not usually the issue.

However, the appointment of a Surveyor at this stage is in fact, a potential issue and you need to ask yourself, is it really in your interest to 'appoint' a Surveyor at this pre-service of Notice stage. 

What are the risks to you in doing so? Let's consider the implications. Say, your neighbour responds to the Notice by stating his 'dissent' and his intention to appoint his own Surveyor at the expense of the Building Owner (i.e., at your own expense). 

Following receipt of the 'dissent' you knock on your neighbour's door to try and negotiate with him and you find him very sympathetic to your plight. He appreciates the extra costs that will accrue if you need to pay for an additional Surveyor to act on his behalf and he suggests that you two share the same Surveyor, with one caveat, being that the Surveyor that is to be shared is the one that he (the Adjoining Owner) has appointed, not the one that you, the Building Owner have appointed. 

You, (the Building Owner) hurry back to your own appointed Surveyor with the news that he is no longer needed and your request that he therefore unilaterally terminate his appointment, only to find that the Surveyor refuses to go away. In fact, he informs you in no uncertain terms that under the Party Wall Act, a Surveyor's appointment cannot be terminated and as his appointment became valid immediately upon the 'dissent' of the Adjoining Owner, it is now too late to terminate it.

Unfortunately for you, the Surveyor is quite right and you now have no choice but to pay the fees of two Surveyors. 

So what should you have done differently? 

1. You could have provided authorisation to the Surveyor to serve Notice but refrained from appointing him until you receive the response from the Adjoining Owners. You would now be free to appoint any Surveyor of your choosing including the Surveyor who your neighbour has chosen who could now act as the one Agreed Surveyor (so long as the Adjoining Owner and his Surveyor agree to this arrangement). 

2. In the Terms and Conditions of the appointment paperwork, you could have demanded that the Surveyor include a clause stating that in the scenario outlined above, the Surveyor will agree to terminate his appointment by declaring himself 'incapable of acting'. At BH Party Wall Surveyors we routinely include such clauses in our appointment paperwork. 

Bottom line, seek good advice throughout the process as this could save you costs and headaches down the line.        


BH Party Wall Surveyors is a London-based party wall surveying company with offices in London and in High Wycombe, offering advice and party wall services to building owners and adjoining owners. Readers should always take their own professional advice and not rely on the information provided here particularly given that no two situations are identical. 

bh@bhpwsurveyors.co.uk
www.bhpwsurveyors.co.uk

Popular posts from this blog

Party Wall Advice - Notices

So what are the rights of an adjoining owner who has just received a Notice with regards proposed works to be undertaken by his neighbour ('the building owner)'? Can he simply refuse to allow the works to go ahead? The answer to that is not as straightforward as it may first appear. Listed below are various possibilities: Q 1) The building owner has served notice to build an extension with the wall to be built wholly on the building owner's land but has stated in his notice that the foundations will straddle the boundary line. The adjoining owner is concerned about damage to the lawn of his back garden should the proposed wall be built. A 1) The adjoining owner cannot prevent the wall being built wholly in the building owner's land, however he can usually insist that the foundations do not straddle the boundary line but rather, are constructed as 'eccentric' ones wholly on the land of the building owner. Only where the building owner can show ...
Read more

Making Good All Damage

Image
Ground Floor Extension - Repairing Damage to a Party Wall Party Wall Connects Extension with House 'Damage' can take a number of forms and the following is just one slightly non-obvious example which involve a ground floor rear extension. The adjoining owner had already built a rear extension partly utilizing an existing party wall. which had previously served as an enclosing wall of a rear garden lavatory. When the lavatory was removed all the walls were removed except the party section. The adjoining owner (as per the picture) had built his extension flank wall enclosing on this party wall and connected a new wall to it which formed the remainder of the flank wall. When you look closely at the party wall you see a vertical line of yellow insulation showing in gaps along the rough brickwork. These gaps in the brickwork no doubt occurred when the rear lavatory walls were removed on both sides.  . The building owner was intending to build his new extension in exact...
Read more

Party Wall Advice - Building an Extension Wall Astride the Boundary

Image
It may seem counter-intuitive that the Party Wall Act should allow a building owner to construct a wall for his own use (e.g. in order to enclose on his ground floor extension) partly on his neighbour's land. If you are an adjoining owner reading this, you my be pleased to hear that the Act only allows it in only very specific situations and then only with certain caveats. It is worth noting that even where the building owner does not have the right to build a wall straddling the boundary line, there is nothing to stop him from sending the adjoining owner a notice requesting permission to build such a wall. Where the right does not exist, the adjoining owner need not even reply as there is deemed dissent. So when, you may ask, does the building owner have the right to construct such a wall (following notice) even with the dissent of the adjoining owner? The answer is - 'where there was a pre-existing wall in that position'. For example, there is an existing garde...
Read more