Mark S wrote

I bet he was sat looking at the party wall agreement on his
mantelpiece refusing to sign it just to be difficult and he got his
reward for holding up the work. ;-)

This can't be right. If he was officially notified of the work as per the Party
Wall etc. Act, a strict timetable was in place and the neighbour has to appoint
a Party Wall Surveyor within a certain time. It is the Surveyor who agrees and
signs the Award, not the neighbour, so it must have been the Surveyor who was
holding things up. My guess is there was a lot more to this story than you
heard on the programme - the need for trial holes suggests there might have been
a structural problem with the party wall for instance.

If he had followed the rules properly instead of jumping the gun, he would
probably not have had so many problems. That's the real point of the Act.

Wasn't the guy they interviewed the bloke downstairs who had all the water
damage? I felt really sorry for him.

The guy doing the program was still a nob though. ;-)

Agreed. I thought Leon the architect was a bit of a wally as well. You didn't
get much info about the design stage and Planning & Building Regs approvals etc
so presumably that all went smoothly, but surely he should have advised the
bloke about Party Wall procedures? Then again, probably he was only instructed
to do half the job.

Peter