Maintenance requirements come with age and weathering. If the wall is
sheltered, the maintenance over the 60 year projected life of a brick wall
is reduced to nil.

Repointing is purely to act as a weathering to prevent moisture penetration
and is not structural, if the wall is sheltered by such close proximity then
no repointing is required.
Such a drastic scenario regarding the bricks tipping is not ever going to
happen in a house wall and is reserved to chimneys which suffer from acid
attack from flue gasses.

The offer of PVCu cladding is also a good one, and should be accepted.

The new wall will actually be increasing the life of the OPs' mothers wall
and will in no way be disadvantaging it in terms of future maintenance

dg


"N. Thornton" wrote in message
om...
"Susan Barlow" wrote in message
...

AFAIK the boundary is my mums side wall. So therefore her eaves and
gutter
do overhang the boundary, as they do on every house on that row. I've
looked
at the identical house around the corner which has had a side extension
and
their eaves appear to go slightly under their neighbours eaves.
The roof ridge on these houses goes from front to back (Hope I'm
explaining
this properly, would a sketch help?)
The neighbours have also offered to pay for upvc soffits for my mums
house,
which to me, implies that there will be little or no access after the
job is
finished
Sue B


Hi Sue.


I do see a problem here.

If built in 1976 this will almost certainly be a double skin wall. The
only way to repoint the outer wall is to do it from the outside.
Without being repointed that wall will over the years weaken
drastically, to the point where it would in the end bend and collapse.
This does not sound like a clever idea.


Turning the boundary wall into a party wall would have the advantage
that it can be and should be maintained, but brings cons as well, in
that for her to do anything at all to that wall would require the
neighbours permission, possibly her to pay for their appointed
surveyor, etc. I dont know whether all that could be dealt with by a
contract with them, IANAL.

Also it would mean linking the 2 properties structurally, which could
possilby prove a bad move one day, though it most likely wont. And I
dont know if its allowed anyway.

In short if it were me I'd say no way Jose, on the grounds that it
would inevitably endanger the structural integrity of the building
after a number of years. I would insist on enough space for
maintenance.


Regards, NT