Seven Steps to Lower Costs
Agreed Surveyor? What’s that?
How can I keep costs down? – Seven Simple Steps
You have started your exciting project, planning permission has been granted and now you find out your works fall under the Party Wall Etc. Act 1996.
The Party Wall Act is invoked by starting the process serving Notice on your neighbours. How much this is all going to cost depends largely on how your neighbours respond. They have several options including consenting to the works or requesting a 2 Surveyor Award, the fees for these works range from hundreds to thousands.
You are naturally concerned about the potential for spiralling costs. Is there anything you can do to keep your costs down…YES!
What can you do to help keep costs low?
1. Talk to your neighbours
All too often we have calls from neighbours who are frustrated as they have only found out about planned works when they received a Party Structure Notice. This gets your project off to a really bad start! You want your neighbours on-side, as their response will dictate your bill!
Simply knocking your neighbour’s door with your planning drawings (and a box of chocolates!) to talk through the different aspects of your project; the Party Wall process; the reputation of your builders and Party Wall Surveyors can go a huge way in settling their concerns. Encourage your neighbour to check reviews and even contact your contractors and Party Wall Surveyor. Any reputable contractor or Surveyor will be happy to reassure them.
2. Start the Party Wall process early
Depending on the type of works you are planning the Party Wall Act states a mandatory notice period of 1 or 2 months before your works can commence. There are a few things that can go wrong if you don’t allow yourself enough time to complete the Party Wall process:
If you try to pressure your neighbour into allowing your works to start earlier than the normal notice period, they might feel panicked, prompting them to request a more comprehensive (and thus expensive) Party Wall Award.
We often hear “my builders are starting next week and I need a Party Wall Award”. You might find yourself in a situation where builders are losing time on your project as they can’t commence notifiable works until the Party Wall process is complete. This can result in the overall works taking a lot longer, their fees being higher or you losing you contractor to another project.
3. Choose your Party Wall Surveyor carefully
Just as you would with any good purchase do your homework. Check your surveyor has a FPWS (Faculty of Party Wall Surveying) or RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) accreditation, check online reviews, talk to your Surveyor and obtain a written quotation.
You can find Party Wall Surveyors that will promise to do a Party Wall Award for a few hundred pounds. Remember professional fees are never cheap and you do get what you pay for. Handled badly even a cheap initial quote can spiral into thousands of pounds, so make sure your chosen Surveyor is experienced and well qualified.
4. Let your Party Wall Surveyor Serve Notice
Understandably you want to reduce costs and you may decide to serve Notice on your neighbours yourself. But, as previously mentioned, your neighbour’s response will dictate your costs. Whilst it is perfectly legal to serve your own notice, it is a legal document and few of us would undertake to prepare a legal document for ourselves. Your Party Wall Surveyor has a complete understanding of the legalities of The Act they will be able to serve a professional package of documents on your neighbours that will give them confidence in you, your plans and your chosen team. If they have confidence in the qualifications of your Surveyor, they are more likely to agree to use them instead of insisting on a 2 Surveyor Award using their own choice of Surveyor.
The fee for serving Notice will generally be quite low and you will likely find it worth every penny.
5. Use the Agreed Surveyor Route
Sometimes your neighbour may request their own choice of Surveyor, they are within their rights to do this. It does not mean that you have to pay 2 sets of Surveyor fees. Section 10 of The Act provides the ‘Agreed Surveyor’ route. This means that, if your neighbour is happy, you can agree to use a single surveyor to represent both of parties. The Surveyor you have been working with up to this point would hand over this part of the project to the new Surveyor.
You have no control over the choice your neighbour has made, and the fees of this new Surveyor may be higher than your original Surveyor…but paying for 2 surveyors will always be more expensive!
If your Party Wall Surveyor has not mentioned the Agreed Surveyor route, be sure to ask about it! Be careful, some surveyors will ask you to sign a Letter of Appointment before serving Notice. This means that if your neighbour selects a different surveyor, you will be forced to pay for 2 surveyors to complete the award.
6. No Response – Resolved!
You have dutifully served Notice on your neighbours and received no response. You may now serve a reminder letter on your neighbours. This will give you future options in case you don’t hear back your neighbours.
If you receive no reply from the reminder letter the Act states you can then appoint a Surveyor ‘on their behalf’. This does mean you must now pay for two surveyors. However, your chosen Party Wall Surveyor will have worked with other local Surveyors in the past, he will be able to make some recommendations on well qualified, reasonably priced Surveyors you can use.
7. Change Design
Surely not?! Why would you change your design only due to the Party Wall process? In some projects this isn’t an option. However, by taking some time to consult your Party Wall Surveyor early on you may find there are some simple design changes you can make that may avoid The Act all together. You will end up with a similar product but reduce your fees! It is not always possible but ask your Party Wall Surveyor to review your plans and offer you any recommendations.
