Why use the Party Wall etc. Act 1996?

The Par­ty Wall etc. Act 1996 has a crit­i­cal role to play in prop­er­ty improve­ment. As a Par­ty Wall Sur­vey­or I am fre­quent­ly called upon to advise own­ers of their rights and respon­si­bil­i­ties under required in respect of ‘the Act’. So why use the Par­ty Wall etc. Act 1996?

What can­not be under­es­ti­mat­ed when con­sid­er­ing a project of any scale, is the expense that delay can cause. A delay could quick­ly result in the loss of rent, increased incon­ve­nience, and pol­lut­ed rela­tions with neigh­bours. The builder or Con­trac­tor will then begin claim­ing for an exten­sion of time or loss and expense, their sched­ule has been dis­rupt­ed for some­thing that ulti­mate­ly is the Build­ing Owner’s respon­si­bil­i­ty. Obvi­ous­ly, it is depen­dent on the process that has been used to pro­cure the project; how­ev­er, there is ample time to resolve Par­ty Wall Dis­putes before com­menc­ing con­struc­tion works of any scale.

The Par­ty Wall etc. Act 1996, is statu­to­ry leg­is­la­tion and should be used. If the works are in scope of the act, no mat­ter how lim­it­ed, there is lit­tle excuse for not using the Act, the cost or effort of obtain­ing valid con­sent vast­ly out­weighs the finan­cial risk of pro­ceed­ing with­out it.

Through expe­ri­ence my first advice to a dis­grun­tled Adjoin­ing Own­er on mat­ter that involves a Build­ing Own­er pro­ceed­ing with works with­out hav­ing served a valid notice and obtain­ing con­sent or going to any effort to form an agree­ment, is the advice of an injunc­tion. By not fol­low­ing this leg­is­la­tion a Build­ing Own­er is breach­ing the rights of the Adjoin­ing Own­ers or neigh­bours and will be at the mer­cy of the local coun­ty court and asso­ci­at­ed costs of lit­i­ga­tion. The Act was passed to avoid this and can prove cost­ly if over­looked.

The Par­ty Wall etc. Act 1996 pro­vides a means for works to take place and with­out it those means do not nec­es­sar­i­ly exist. This may sound very seri­ous and projects do hap­pen with­out any men­tion of the Act; how­ev­er, should dam­age be caused with­out the Act in place or a Sched­ule of Con­di­tion tak­en, you are open to an increased risk in claims of tres­pass and / or nui­sance which are often con­tentious and are there­fore best avoid­ed. Injunc­tions can effec­tive­ly sus­pend con­struc­tion oper­a­tions com­plete­ly, caus­ing severe finan­cial deficits.