"Peter Crosland" wrote in message
...


The PW Act is basically toothless in that if you invoke it you end
up paying lots of money but if you ignore it it isn't retrospective.
Just go ahead and do the work, preferably while the neighbours are
away and make sure you don't damage their property in the process.
If you give people PW notice of course they'll want a surveyor to
safeguard their interests at your expense but if you just go ahead
they'll have no idea how to take out an injunction to stop you or
want to pay the costs involved. Once the work is done your only
liability is for damages caused but you always faced those anyway.

Remarkably stupid advice from someone who clearly has no idea of the
consequences.

I have a very detailed idea of the consequences having been in the situation
and made a study of the issues.

The neighbour only has to go to a solicitor who can apply for
an injunction that day.

The neighbour has to be damn sure that whatever work they can hear being
done actually falls within the Party Wall Act provisions and that they have
a right to stop it. In most cases, the vast majority in fact, your average
neighbour will have no idea how to obtain an injunction, whether he is
entitled to one, what the PW Act is or that it even exists. The court will
want evidence that it's a PW matter before granting an injunction and if it
turns out that the neighbour has stopped the work without cause he can end
up on the receiving end of a claim for the additional costs he's created.

You will end up paying all those costs as well as
those for the PWA fees.

Only if the neighbour sues you to recover those costs and wins. Taking out
an injunction doesn't mean that the court awards the costs of it to the
other party

Furthermore if and when you come to sell the
property you will be asked to sign a declaration that all necessary
permissions have been obtained. With a PW award you are stuffed on that.

Any Party Wall matter that requires the appointment of surveyors is
technically classed as a dispute anyway and will affect both properties when
it becomes time to sell. However it's a common and easily explained matter
and unlikely to make a scrap of difference to a buyer.

To the OP. Ask any surveyor about PW matters and you'll find that in nearly
100% of cases if you serve a PW notice on a neighbour they'll escalate it to
a 'dispute' simply by not agreeing to the works within 14 days and also
require their own surveyor in addition to yours. It's a no lose situation
for them and in fact the prudent thing to do. So these costs should always
be factored in because they're always going to arise.

Similarly however, if you don't give PW notice then in nearly all cases
nothing will happen when you do the work. Your problem is in having given
the notice and revealed your hand. One strategy is to do some additional
works close to the party wall which don't actually affect it and see what
happens. The noise will travel through to the other side from a long way
from the party wall and quite likely sound as though it's affecting it. If
the neighbours threaten an injunction you can let them in the safe knowledge
that you aren't actually doing PW works. It will cost them a grand or so to
take out the injunction and they have no way of getting that back from you.
If nothing happens with what sounds to them like PW works then it's unlikely
anything will when you actually do the PW works.

Once the PW works are complete there's nothing they can do anyway. If you
can tell when they're in or out and do it when they're away there's really
nothing to stop you.
--
"Men never commit evil so fully and joyfuly as when they do it for religious
convictions." - Blaise Pascal