Blog
The Pitfalls of Serving Your Own Party Wall Notice
Friday 26th July 2019
Carl O'Boyle BSc MRICS FCIOB MFPWS
The main issue with serving your own notices (often downloaded from Google) is that you're acting as someone who should have experience of Party Wall matters and without this experience it's very easy to trip up with the process and set your project back months.
The most common mistakes made by Building Owners serving their own Party Wall Notice are as follows:-
- Wrong names on the notice.
- Wrong works notified.
- Incorrect drawings and insufficient information not included with the notice.
- Procedures for serving notices not followed.
- Notices served with the wrong correspondence address.
- Notices not dated correctly.
These are only the most common mistakes made and are by no means an exhaustive list of the types of errors that we at Tayross Associates see regularly in Party Wall Notices served by Building Owners. Any of the above areas could mean the Party Wall Notices are declared invalid and the whole process must start de novo (all over again). Worse still, is if people act on Notices that are found to be invalid later, this could have serious consequences for the Building Owner, especially when you come to sell your property and this is revealed.
It is normally quite obvious to the Adjoining Owners when a Party Wall Notice has been served by a Building Owner who has not thought to consult with a Party Wall Surveyor. Understandably, this normally annoys the Adjoining Owner who sees the Building Owner already trying to cut corners and feels that this is a sign of things to come with regards to the building works and how these are to be carried out in close proximity to their property.
At Tayross Associates we offer a fixed price for the serving of notices, site visit, preparing a Schedule of Condition and agreeing Award with the other surveyor. Or, if it's an agreed Award issuing that Award and carrying out a final inspection once the works are completed.
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This article was written by Carl O'Boyle BSc MRICS FCIOB MFPWS. Carl is a full professional member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a member of the Faculty of Party Wall Surveyors and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building for which he currently sits on the CIOB professional conduct committee and adjudications panel.
If you have any Party Wall enquiries then please call us at our Pinner office on 0208 426 1448. We cover all of Pinner, Harrow, Stanmore, Northwood, Central London and the surrounding areas.
