The Party Wall Act
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) launched a consultation earlier in the year prior to the publication of the 8th Edition of Party Wall Legislation and Procedure. Essentially, this is the guidance that party wall surveyors generally follow when dealing with party wall matters governed by the Party Wall etc Act 1996 (PWA), write Clive Scrivener MRICS and Zah Azeem MRICS, Partners at Wimbledon based Chartered Surveyors Scrivener Tibbatts.
The importance of the PWA was graphically demonstrated by this story in which the owner of a semi-detached property demolished his side of the property and was then unable to rebuild his home. The consequences for his neighbour have been significant, as the article describes.
The PWA might be considered an esoteric piece of legislation of interest only to chartered surveyors. But consider, this there are over 7 million terraced properties (25.9% of the housing stock) and 6.45 million semi-detached properties (23.7% of the housing stock), based on recent GOV.UK Council Tax Stock Statistics in England and Wales.
Now does the PWA have your attention?
Lawyers in particular are interested to see what the consequence of a recent Court of Appeal judgement on a case will be and how Power v Shah [2023] will shape future legislation.
The majority of party wall matters proceed without the need to involve lawyers, as there is a dispute resolution procedure set out in section 10 of the PWA. However, the Court of Appeal decided that this s.10 mechanism is only available when there is actually jurisdiction.
This firm has been at the forefront of party wall matters since its inception. If you would like to discuss something related to a property valuation, specifically Party Wall, Freehold Valuations and Market Valuations for disputes, please contact Clive or Zah direct via email at clive@scrivenertibbatts.co.uk and zah@scrivenertibbatts.co.uk or call 020 8947 7040.
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