Welcome to the party (wall)
The Party Wall Act etc 1996 seems to me to be an opportunity for difficulty and additional expense which presumably it was intended to avoid. If this is the statutory solution goodness knows what capers arose before.
We need to remove an already unstable party wall which divides our garden from the adjoining property. It is no more or less than a garden wall in very bad repair but as it is a party wall we have had to serve notice of our intention to carefully remove and then rebuild it. The adjoining owner has dissented, as is his right under the act, and appointed his own surveyor for whom we have to pay. We now have to appoint our own surveyor and, potentially, if these two cannot agree on the works we than have to appoint a third surveyor to agree an award. Jobs for the boys? In any event, we are going to have to pay several thousand quid for them all to agreethat a wall that is falling down can be taken down and rebuilt at our expense. Very depressing indeed although there is a slight chance that as we are jointly responsible for the party wall that the adjoining owner will have to contribute toward the cost of rebuilding.
None of this is good for the visage - worry lines are appearing daily. Have had to resort to some rathermarvellous 'filling' from a local Restylane practitioner. She is terribly talented and very discreet - I am not and upon the first “filling” I rushed to school to collect my daughter and urged all those assembled to view the results. This little find has meant that I can now be as cross as I like safe in the knowledge that the damage to the mush can be fixed. Highly recommended and worth every penny, see Sara at www.dulwichnaturalbeauty.co.uk.
Rant over.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Helen - I’m preparing some articles on the legislative travesty that is the Party Wall Act, so interested to read about your experiences. How did things pan out in the end? What were final costs? Did you feel surveyors were milking it for all it was worthy, refusing to play ball so that, surprise, surprise their fees went up? Would be interested on your feedback.