ÆANDREW EDWARD & CO.
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For adjoining owners

An extension is going up next door.
Planning permission isn't party wall consent.

The council granting planning permission tells you nothing about whether your neighbour has complied with the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. They are two entirely separate regimes, and the council has no role in the second one. Most extensions engage the Act somewhere, and a great many are built without anyone realising a notice was required.

Check where you stand. FreeI've been served a notice
What triggers the Act

Three ways an extension next door involves you.

A typical rear or side extension can engage all three at once, and a notice that covers only one of them is incomplete.

Section 1

Building on the boundary line

Where a new wall is built up to or astride the line of junction. One month's notice. If built astride, the wall becomes a party wall in which you both have an interest, so you have a say in which it is.
Section 2

Work to the shared wall

Cutting in beams, inserting a flashing or tray, removing a chimney breast, raising the wall, cutting away projections, or exposing it to the weather. Two months' notice.
Section 6

Excavating near your foundations

Within 3 metres and deeper than your foundations, or within 6 metres and cutting the 45-degree line from them. One month's notice, and it must be accompanied by plans and sections.

Section 6 is the one that gets missed

A great many extension notices cover the party wall and say nothing about the foundations. Modern trench-fill foundations are routinely a metre or more deep, while a Victorian footing may be barely half that. So an extension built entirely on your neighbour's land, never touching the shared wall, can still be notifiable under section 6. If you have received a notice that mentions section 2 only, it is worth having the foundation depths checked.
Send us the notice. We'll tell you what's missingRead your rights as an adjoining owner
What to do

If work is planned, or already starting.

  1. Establish whether a notice has been served on you

    And on every owner
    If your home is jointly owned, each owner must be served. Serving one of two joint owners is among the most common defects we see, and it makes the notice invalid.

  2. Check what the notice actually covers

    Sections and works
    Compare it against the planning drawings if you have seen them. Look specifically for a section 6 excavation that has been omitted, and for works described so vaguely that you cannot tell what is proposed.

  3. Respond within 14 days

    Silence is a deemed dispute
    Consent, or dissent and appoint a surveyor. If you dissent you get a schedule of condition and a binding Award, normally at your neighbour's expense.

  4. Get the schedule of condition done before work starts

    Not after
    Interiors, elevations and boundary structures. If an excavation is involved, the drive, paths and garden walls matter too.

  5. If nothing was served and work has begun

    Move quickly
    Notifiable work without a valid notice is a breach of the Act. The available remedies are strongest before the works progress, so this is not something to leave for a fortnight.
Keeping it civil

This does not have to become a row.

The most common worry we hear is not about cracks. It is about having to live next door to the person afterwards.

It is a fair worry, and the answer is that the Act is designed to prevent exactly that. Following the statutory process moves the technical argument off your relationship and onto two surveyors who do this for a living, disagree professionally, and go home. You are not required to negotiate load paths and foundation depths with someone whose children play with yours.

In our experience relationships between neighbours are damaged when owners try to sort structural matters out informally and something goes wrong. Not when the Act is followed properly. Most building owners understand this perfectly well once it is explained, and many are relieved that the Award protects them too.

Extension questions from adjoining owners

They have planning permission. Doesn't that mean they can just build?

No. Planning permission and the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 are separate regimes serving different purposes. Planning is public law about land use and appearance, decided by the council. The Act is private law about structural rights between two owners, and the council has no role in it whatsoever. Permitted development rights make no difference either. An extension built under permitted development still needs party wall notices if it engages the Act.

The extension is entirely on their land. Does the Act still apply?

Very possibly. Building wholly on their own land does not avoid the Act if the foundations are excavated within 3 metres of your building and go deeper than yours (section 6(1)), or within 6 metres and cut the 45-degree line from your foundations (section 6(2)). A single-storey extension with a 1 metre deep trench foundation right up against a shallow Victorian footing will often engage section 6 even though nothing touches the party wall.

What if they build right up to the boundary?

That is section 1, the line of junction. If your neighbour proposes to build a new wall up to or astride the boundary line where there is currently no building, they must serve at least one month's notice. You have a say in whether the wall is built astride the line or wholly on their land, and if it is astride, the wall becomes a party wall in which you both have an interest.

Can I ask them to move the extension?

Not through the Party Wall Act. The Act controls how notifiable work is carried out, not whether the building should be there at all. Location, size and appearance are planning matters and, where relevant, questions of rights to light or restrictive covenants. All of which sit outside the party wall process. Your surveyor's job is the structural interface, and it is worth knowing which questions belong where.

What about my right to light?

It is a separate legal right, not part of the Act, and a party wall Award neither grants nor extinguishes it. If an extension would materially reduce daylight to a window you have enjoyed for twenty years or more, that is a rights to light question for a solicitor and a specialist surveyor. We will flag it if we see it, but it is not resolved through the party wall process.

Their builder says no notice is needed because it's a modern house.

That is a common misunderstanding and it is wrong. The separating wall between two dwellings is a party wall whether it was built in 1885 or 2015. Cutting into it, or excavating near the foundations next door, engages the Act regardless of the age or construction of the building. Timber-frame and lightweight blockwork separating walls are covered exactly the same way.

Not sure whether the Act applies to what's happening next door?

Describe the works, or send us the notice and any drawings you have. Ten minutes will tell you whether it is notifiable, whether the notice stands up, and what you should do about it.

  • The building owner normally pays your surveyor's reasonable fees
  • A named surveyor on your case from start to finish
  • We will tell you honestly if you do not need us
Appoint us as your surveyorTalk to us first, freeor call 01174420259

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.

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