Party wall services in London: does the Act apply to you?
If you build on or against a shared wall, dig close to a neighbour's foundations, or build up to the boundary, the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 probably applies, and the first step is a written notice to the neighbour. This page tells you whether it does, for free, and which of our services you need next. Notices start at £45 for each adjoining owner.
Fixed fee from £45 · all prices
Prefer to talk it through?
Does the Party Wall Act apply to your building work?
The Act covers three kinds of work, and each has its own notice. Work to a wall or floor you share with a neighbour, such as cutting in a steel beam or raising the wall, needs a party structure notice. Building a new wall on the line of the boundary between your land and your neighbour's needs a line of junction notice. Digging near a neighbour's building needs a notice of adjacent excavation. If your plans touch none of these, the Act does not apply and you need no notice.
Most London houses are terraced or semi-detached, so a rear extension, a loft conversion or an internal wall change often crosses at least one of these lines. A detached house with a wide garden often crosses none. A free check is the right first step because the duty is yours as the building owner, and the Act gives the neighbour remedies if you skip it.
Party Wall Services
from £45
Every price is the full fixed fee you pay. No VAT is charged. Council application fees are paid to the council separately.
What you get
- A free answer to whether the Act applies to your work
- Party wall notices drawn and ready to serve, one per adjoining owner
- A dated record of your neighbour's property before work starts
- A referral to an independent party wall surveyor if a dispute arises
- Measured drawings the notice can refer to
- Plain steps for what happens after each notice
- Check the Act applies
Shared wall, boundary wall or digging near a neighbour's foundations. This page answers it for free.
- Draw and serve the notice
One notice for each adjoining owner, with drawings, served in good time before work.
- Record the neighbour's side
A dated schedule of condition, so any later damage can be judged against a fixed record.
- Neighbour replies in 14 days
They consent, or dissent, or say nothing, which counts as dissent.
- Surveyors if there is a dispute
An agreed surveyor, or one each with a third, settles it in an award.
The three notices and how long before the work
A line of junction notice under section 1 must be served at least one month before you intend the building work to start. A party structure notice under section 3 must be served at least two months before the work begins, and it falls away if work has not begun within twelve months of service.
A notice of adjacent excavation under section 6 must be served at least one month before you begin to excavate. It applies when you dig within 3 metres of a neighbour's building and deeper than their foundations, or within 6 metres where your excavation cuts a line drawn down at 45 degrees from the bottom of their foundations.
Serving a notice early does not hurt. Serving it late means the work can be stopped, so we work back from your intended start date.
Under section 11 the expenses of work under the Act are defrayed by the building owner, which is you.
Your neighbour's 14 days, and why silence counts as a dispute
Once the notice is served the neighbour has 14 days to reply in writing. They can consent, or they can dissent and start a dispute. Under section 5, if they serve no consent within the 14 days they are deemed to have dissented and a dispute is deemed to have arisen. Section 6 has the same rule for an excavation notice.
So a neighbour who ignores the notice has not agreed to anything. You cannot treat their silence as a yes. A dispute is settled by surveyors, which is where a party wall surveyor comes in.
Who pays the surveyors
Under section 11 the expenses of work under the Act are defrayed by the building owner, which is you. For the surveyors themselves, section 10 says the reasonable costs of making an award are paid by such of the parties as the surveyor or surveyors making the award determine. In practice the building owner usually carries them, since the neighbour has asked for nothing, but the award can say otherwise and only reasonable costs count.
Our notice fee is separate and fixed. A surveyor's fee is the surveyor's own and not ours, and we do not quote it here.
Which of our services do you need?
Start with the party wall notices and drawings: the fee is £45 for each adjoining owner, so a semi-detached house with one neighbour needs one notice. Add a schedule of condition at £245 when you want a fixed record of your neighbour's side before any work shakes the walls.
If the neighbour dissents, we refer you to an independent surveyor through our surveyor referral. We do not act as a surveyor and we do not make awards. If your drawings need an accurate base, a measured building survey is the starting point for both the planning set and the notice.
How this fits with planning and building regulations
The Act is separate from planning permission and from building regulations approval. Having one does not give you another, and a neighbour cannot stop work that has planning permission by refusing consent under the Act. They can only start a dispute that surveyors settle.
That is why we draw the notice from the same survey as your rear extension drawings and building regulations drawings: one set of measurements, one description of the work, no mismatch for a neighbour or a surveyor to pick at.
Sources
Every figure on this page, where it comes from and a link to the original.
| Figure | Source | Link |
|---|---|---|
| one month | Party Wall etc. Act 1996 s1(2) and (5): line of junction notice (source wording: "at least one month before he intends the building work to start") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| two months | Party Wall etc. Act 1996 s3(2)(a): party structure notice (source wording: "served at least two months before the date on which the proposed work will begin") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| one month | Party Wall etc. Act 1996 s6(5): adjacent excavation notice (source wording: "at least one month before beginning to excavate") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 3 metres | Party Wall etc. Act 1996 s6(1)(a) (source wording: "within a distance of three metres measured horizontally from any part of a building or structure of an adjoining owner") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 6 metres | Party Wall etc. Act 1996 s6(2)(a) (source wording: "within a distance of six metres measured horizontally from any part of a building or structure of an adjoining owner") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 14 days | Party Wall etc. Act 1996 s5: no consent served (source wording: "within the period of fourteen days" and "a dispute shall be deemed to have arisen between the parties") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| defrayed by the building owner | Party Wall etc. Act 1996 s11(1) (source wording: "expenses of work under this Act shall be defrayed by the building owner") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| reasonable costs | Party Wall etc. Act 1996 s10(13) (source wording: "shall be paid by such of the parties as the surveyor or surveyors making the award determine") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
Every report on this page, with its fixed fee
| Report | Fixed fee | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Party wall notices and drawings | £45 | The notice itself, drawn and served. The fee is per adjoining owner. |
| Schedule of condition | £245 | A dated photo and written record of the neighbour's property before work starts. |
| Party wall surveyor referral | Free | We refer you to an independent surveyor. The surveyor's fee is separate. |
| Measured building survey | £200 | Accurate plans of your house, which the notices and drawings are drawn from. |