This decision would be much easier if you knew in advance whether or not your neighbour was planning to consent. Why not smooth the way by giving your neighbour a copy of the plans as soon as they are ready and at least a week or two before serving the official notice? Take the plans round personally and explain the parts of the work which will affect their property. Include your architect’s office number in case they have any technical questions. Having received full details of the work your neighbour should may be able to tell you whether or not they will consent before you serve the notice; although they might wish to consult their own surveyor before making any response.

Party wall issues? Here are some advices: You must tell your neighbours if you want to carry out any building work near or on your shared property boundary, or ‘party wall’, in England and Wales. Party walls stand on the land of 2 or more owners and either: form part of a building, don’t form part of a building, such as a garden wall (not wooden fences). Walls on one owner’s land used by other owners (2 or more) to separate their buildings are also party walls. Party structures: You can also have a ‘party structure’. This could be a floor or other structure that separates buildings or parts of buildings with different owners, eg flats. Party wall agreements are different from planning permission or building regulations approval.

If you have items lying around or blocking spaces or areas of the property where problems have arisen in the past, it is important that you expose these areas so that the surveyor can assess the area and potentially come up with a solution to the problem. You should avoid looking to hide any problem areas and instead focus on decluttering your property.

Likewise your property may be scouted by buy-to-let investors who are looking for a quick sale without too much trouble, or who are looking for a ‘ready’ home that they can move tenants into straight away. Try to put yourself in the shoes of your next potential buyer. Ask yourself these questions; can I move in here straight away? Will it cost me to make immediate repairs? Are these issues easily fixed? Am I willing to conduct any DIY or have repairs made by a technician?

Our Director Nathan Foley is a degree qualified building surveyor with over 20 years of construction experience starting out as a plumbing and heating engineer and then moving on to construction and building surveying. Having worked within the construction industry covering a number of different disciplines including project management and contract management, this wealth of experience working at all levels of the construction industry is backed up by educational standards including a BSc (Hons) in Building Surveying and NCRQ health and Saftey Diploma in addition he has also achieved the following technical levels of recognition. Read more info at Party Wall Surveyor Canterbury.

These types of work all require notices to be served as required by the act, once notice has been served, if there is dissent then it is deemed there is a dispute and the Act allows for this, this would be the dispute or resolution stage. Most disputes arrives when the Adjoining Owner has worries or concerns with the proposed work or simply fails to respond in the statutory time to the building owner, for which there could be many reasons. Where a dispute arises either due to non-consent or no response then the Act lays down the steps required to resolve the dispute this is where the Building Owner and the Adjoining Owner will each appoint there Surveyor this could be one each or even the same surveyor with agreement for all parties working as the Agreed Surveyor.

The Party Wall Process: This process is all based around the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. The main purpose of the Act is to provide a framework for amicably preventing and resolving disputes between neighbours in relation to Party Walls, boundary Walls and Excavations near neighbouring buildings. Building owners are given statutory rights that did not exist in existing common law when undertaking certain types of construction as defined by the Act. The full Building/ Structural Survey cost will vary from 500 to 1,300; the survey cost will depend on the property type, size and location. To save you money on your survey, compare fees by filling in our simple and quick form and receive up to four instant quotes from our RICS regulated Chartered Surveyors. As one of the most comprehensive surveys available, more often than not a building survey will be requested by potential buyers of your property. It is a wide range inspection of the entirety of a property done in more specific depth than a Homebuyers Report or a Mortgage Valuation. A Building Survey’s purpose is to give a detailed report of the condition of the property in question.

Home and building survey tips and tricks : Is your House a Well? OK, this may seem a weird question to ask, but it even happened to me! A ground floor flat I bought showed damp in the front room wall. The previous owners had built another wall outside and put a concrete ‘floor’ in between. The result: a fantastic well when it rained! It was easy to fix, the concrete came out and was replaced with gravel so water can drain away. Once you’ve done all the checks – check again in six months time! Homes move, they leak, they get broken, every day of the week. It might be after a storm, after you have had some work done, or just because they are buildings that, just like us, need maintaining in good health. Your home is probably your most expensive asset – you wouldn’t not change the tyres on your car or let it go for years without a service, your home is the same, just a lot more valuable, so TAKE CARE OF IT! Discover more info at home-heroes.co.uk.