PARTY WALL AGREEMENTS

A party wall is a wall that separates buildings belonging to different owners (but also includes garden walls built astride a boundary – technically known as “party fence walls”).

Since the Party Wall etc Act 1996 came into force, you can only do certain works to a party wall after notifying your neighbour (which term also includes both the landlord and the tenant of an adjoining leasehold property) in advance and either with the written agreement of the neighbour or with a Party Wall Agreement (technically called an ‘Award’). If neither type of agreement is obtained, your neighbour can stop your works.

Works covered by the Act include:

• Cutting into a wall to take the bearing of a beam
• Inserting a damp proof course
• Raising a party wall
• Demolishing and rebuilding a party wall
• Underpinning a party wall
• Weathering the junction of adjoining walls or buildings by cutting a flashing into an adjoining building
• Excavating foundations within three metres of a neighbour’s structure and lower than its foundations
• Excavating foundations within six metres of a neighbour’s structure and below a line drawn down at 45 degrees from the bottom of its foundations
• Building a new wall on the line of junction (boundary) between two properties.