CHARTERED BUILDING SURVEYORS

Specialising in boundaries in England and Wales- where they are and what rights exist across them. Working on the edge - facilitating construction in the urban environment, helping to maximise site use, minimise cost and delay caused by neighbours, and protecting the rights of owners of land and buildings from building works and associated activities nearby.

Section 2 of the Party Wall etc Act 1996

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It gives the right to the building owner to carry out works to a party structure. It also gives the right to carry out certain works to an adjoining owner's building to facilitate the exercise of the rights to do work to the party structure. The right of access over adjacent land for scaffold etc follows.

If there is no written agreement within fourteen days, surveyors must be appointed to settle the dispute by award.

See Section 10.

(1) This section applies where lands of different owners adjoin and at the line of junction the lands are built on or a boundary wall, being a party fence wall or the external wall of a building, has been erected.

(2) A building owner shall have the following rights-

(a) to underpin, thicken or raise a party structure, a party fence wall, or an external wall which belongs to the building owner and is built against a party structure or party fence wall;

(b) to make good, repair, or demolish and rebuild, a party structure or party fence wall in a case where such work is necessary on account of defect or want of repair of the structure or wall;

(c) to demolish a partition which separates buildings belonging to different owners but does not conform with statutory requirements and to build instead a party wall which does so conform;

(d) in the case of buildings connected by arches or structures over public ways or over passages belonging to other persons, to demolish the whole or part of such buildings, arches or structures which do not conform with statutory requirements and to rebuild them so that they do so conform;

(e) to demolish a party structure which is of insufficient strength or height for the purposes of any intended building of the building owner and to rebuild it of sufficient strength or height for the said purposes (including rebuilding to a lesser height or thickness where the rebuilt structure is of sufficient strength and height for the purposes of any adjoining owner);

(f) to cut into a party structure for any purpose (which may be or include the purpose of inserting a damp proof course);

(g) to cut away from a party wall, party fence wall, external wall or boundary wall any footing or any projecting chimney breast, jamb or flue, or other projection on or over the land of the building owner in order to erect, raise or underpin any such wall or for any other purpose;

(h) to cut away or demolish parts of any wall or building of an adjoining owner overhanging the land of the building owner or overhanging a party wall, to the extent that it is necessary to cut away or demolish the parts to enable a vertical wall to be erected or raised against the wall or building of the adjoining owner;

(j) to cut into the wall of an adjoining owner's building in order to insert a flashing or other weather-proofing of a wall erected against that wall;

(k) to execute any other necessary works incidental to the connection of a party structure with the premises adjoining it;

(l) to raise a party fence wall, or to raise such a wall for use as a party wall, and to demolish a party fence wall and rebuild it as a party fence wall or as a party wall;

(m) subject to the provisions of section 11(7), to reduce, or to demolish and rebuild, a party wall or party fence wall to-

(i) a height of not less than two metres where the wall is not used by an adjoining owner to any greater extent than a boundary wall; or

(ii) a height currently enclosed upon by the building of an adjoining owner;

(n) to expose a party wall or party structure hitherto enclosed subject to providing adequate weathering.

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DAVID BOWDEN & ASSOCIATES CHARTERED BUILDING SURVEYORS

27 Selby Road    London E11 3LT    UK    Tel +44 (0) 20 7377 9494

partywalls@davidbowden.co.uk

These pages ©David A Bowden BSc MRICS ACIArb 1996 - 2003
part Crown Copyright 1996 see notice

Web site first opened November 1997
Last updated June 1999