黑洞社区

I鈥檓 doing a small job that involves taking out a few structural walls to open up the ground floor in a London terraced house. I asked my client if he knew his neighbours on the side likely to be affected, because of the party wall implication. 鈥淪he鈥檚 just been through the whole process herself,鈥� he said. 鈥淗e鈥檚 a builder and she鈥檚 an architect.鈥� I suggested he let them know work was going to start soon, and that he pitch up with a case of wine. I thought I鈥檇 look efficient and write them a grown-up party wall letter so I dug out the explanatory booklet from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. By page two I was losing the will to live.

I used to do party wall awards when I was struggling even harder than I am now, but one can鈥檛 go taking the bread out of surveyors鈥� mouths indefinitely. And I鈥檓 not interested in the work. When I do things I鈥檓 not interested in, I don鈥檛 do them well, and am therefore more likely to incur the wrath of the person writing the cheques. A surveyor is a professional you pay not to have any imagination, although you don鈥檛 have to look far to see that clients seem quite happy to pay architects who don鈥檛 have any imagination either.

It鈥檚 probably a bit like solicitors. Your solicitor is a sweetie, but the other person鈥檚 solicitor is a ruthless bastard. I鈥檝e found the best way of resolving party wall issues is for everybody to agree to appoint a joint surveyor. Everything can be sorted out by nice chaps (or chapesses) wearing Barbour jackets, corduroy trousers, Viyella shirts and those shoes that look like cornish pasties. Clipboard. Camera. Six hundred quid a side. Job done.

Unfortunately, there is another breed of surveyor that prefers to present itself as something out of Shark or Boston Legal, whose aim is to foment dissent. Actually it鈥檚 not always the surveyors鈥� fault. They are responding to a set of other drivers that can be summed up by the phrase 鈥渄isgruntled neighbour鈥�. When an architect has gained consent for something that the neighbour鈥檚 application was turned down for, they can be very disgruntled. Sometimes they stir it up just because they realise they can鈥檛 get any compensation, unless, of course, there is the remotest chance of someone losing any light.

A surveyor is a professional you pay not to have any imagination, although clients seem quite happy to pay architects not to have any imagination either

I finished a job last year where there were eight party wall agreements. I imagine that in the commercial world with leaseholders, head leaseholders and freeholders, clients would kill for as few as eight awards. In this case my client鈥檚 surveyor would ring up almost in tears, after yet another failure to agree the eighth award. The would-be Boston Legal would complain he鈥檇 been served the wrong notice, or that he needed a fuller method statement for fitting the deep padstone, or that he only had drawing revision D showing the door swinging from left to right, and he needed 28 days to respond to the engineer鈥檚 revised mesh sizes. All the other surveyors鈥� fees would be about eighteen hundred quid, but his would be four and a half grand. I can鈥檛 bring myself to charge my own time spent on party wall work, but at least it makes my client realise that the information he鈥檚 paying the architect to generate actually results in something.

If you have some scumbag neighbours who have taken on a DIY project to dig themselves a basement, of course you need someone to protect your interests, but increasingly party wall disputes seem like an elaborate job creation scheme. It鈥檚 a shame it鈥檚 not like 黑洞社区 Control, where the local borough appoints an inspector to prepare joint agreements and the fee is based on the weight of the steel.

It is gratifying though when these aggressive types miss a trick. I had a really tiresome one a few years back. Lived for the rule book. About six months after the work was finished, I asked our surveyor how much the adjoining owner鈥檚 rottweiler had charged. I鈥檇 warned our client it might be five or six grand. 鈥淲ell,鈥� he said 鈥淢atey boy was so busy telling me why he couldn鈥檛 respond to my notices, that it wasn鈥檛 until everything was to his satisfaction that I realised he鈥檇 forgotten to charge us anything.鈥�