Audi Partem Alteram (Hear the other side)
Around one thousand six hundred years ago, St Augustine spent time talking about how we interact with neighbours and disputes. This principle of a fair hearing has passed into natural justice. It is also the lead principle for Party Wall Surveyors. The Party Wall etc Act 1996 was created so that a neighbour affected by building works would be heard.
Audi Partem Alteram (Hear the other side)
Around one thousand six hundred years ago, St Augustine spent time talking about how we interact with neighbours and disputes. This principle of a fair hearing has passed into natural justice. It is also the lead principle for Party Wall Surveyors. The Party Wall etc Act 1996 was created so that a neighbour affected by building works would be heard.
It is a simple piece of legislation that makes the person doing work to a party wall, fence wall, or digging foundations within a certain distance of their neighbour (that’s the “etc” bit in the title), responsible for avoiding damage to their neighbour and if there is, that they are responsible for reparation.
Some people see the serving of notice under the Party Wall Act to be an intention of war. They are wrong. We see it as a declaration of peace, where each side has a voice and communication and transparency can help the project proceed without animosity.
After all, where is the point in building or improving a lovely home if in doing so you fall out with your neighbours. As St Augustine also wrote “Conscience and reputation are two things. Conscience is due to yourself, reputation to your neighbour.”
We have a brief video on Party Walls by Stephen Cornish MA BSc FRICS FFPWS and further information on our web site. Also, we offer an initial free advice service via our website http://www.woodwardsurveyors.co.uk/faqs/.
Woodward Chartered Surveyors are members of the Roral Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Faculty of Party Wall Surveyors (FPWS). We cover an area from Oxford to Oxford Street, with locations in Witney in Oxfordshire, Prestwood near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, Chesham on the Bucks - Herts borders, Watford in Hertfordshire, Northwood and Harrow in Middlesex, our head office at Harrow on the Hill in North West London, and The Mayfair Office in Thayer Street, London, W1.
