If a notice has been served on you, the answer is almost certainly nothing at all, the building owner pays. If you are the one building, we look at your drawings and put an estimate in writing before you commit, rather than quoting a fixed fee for a scheme nobody has read.
The person doing the building pays for the works and for the reasonable surveying fees on both sides.
That is the default position under the Act, and it exists for an obvious reason: you did not ask for any of this. Your neighbour is exercising rights over a structure you share, or digging beside your foundations, for their own benefit. The Act does not expect you to fund your own protection against it.
So the honest answer to "what will this cost me?" is, in the ordinary case, nothing. Not a deposit, not a contribution, not an excess. Our fees are agreed with the building owner's surveyor and recorded in the Award.
Narrow exceptions exist. Work you request purely for your own benefit, costs caused unreasonably, or an unsuccessful appeal. We will tell you at the outset if we think one applies.
Nobody can promise in advance how a neighbour will respond, which is exactly why a fixed fee quoted before you have served notice is a guess.
£450 to £750estimate
We serve the notice and record a Schedule of Condition. With written consent there is no Award to agree, so this is the quickest, lowest-cost route.
£1,200 to £3,000estimate
Surveyors are appointed and we agree a Party Wall Award. Silence counts as a dispute too. The building owner normally pays the reasonable fees for both sides.
Indicative market ranges only, not a quote. Figures vary with the number of adjoining owners and the nature of the works. Your written estimate is confirmed before any work begins.
Why we put it in writing
In the ordinary case, yes. Section 11 puts the cost of the works and the reasonable surveying fees of both owners on the building owner, because the works are for their benefit. We agree our fees with their surveyor and they are recorded in the Award. We do not take card details from adjoining owners and we do not ask you for money on account.
A few, and they are narrow. If you ask for work to be carried out solely for your own benefit. Say, taking the opportunity to have something done to your side while the scaffolding is up, that is yours to pay for. Costs caused unreasonably by your own conduct can also fall to you. And if you appeal an Award and lose, costs may follow. We will tell you plainly at the outset if we think any of these might apply to you; in the overwhelming majority of cases, none do.
Because a fixed price quoted before anyone has seen the drawings is a guess with a contingency built in, and every straightforward client subsidises every complicated one. It also creates a quiet pressure to keep the work inside the quoted envelope, which is the last thing you want when the question is whether the excavation design is adequate. We would rather look at your scheme, tell you what it will take, and put that in writing.
Four things, in roughly this order: how many adjoining owners there are (each one is a separate notice, a separate schedule of condition and potentially a separate surveyor); whether excavation is involved; how complex or unusual the structures are; and how responsive everybody is. A single-neighbour loft conversion with a consenting neighbour is a very different matter from a basement with four adjoining owners.
It is a question the surveyors determine, and if they cannot agree it goes to the third surveyor. Reasonable means proportionate to the work actually required by the matter, not simply whatever has been invoiced. Part of what a building owner is paying us for is scrutiny of the fees claimed on the other side.
No. We do not ask for card payment before we have spoken to you, and we never do so for adjoining owners. Building owners receive a written estimate and terms of business, and are invoiced as the matter progresses.
Send your drawings and tell us how many neighbours are involved. We will confirm which notices apply and what our fee is likely to be, before you instruct anyone.
No card details. No obligation. Nothing is final until you sign the appointment. A member of our office team reads every message, and a surveyor replies, usually within one working day.
Why it costs an adjoining owner nothing.
What we do and how instructing us works.
Every stage, with realistic timescales.
