Decisions and actions that can be detrimental to you

Overview

The Party Wall process gives you choices. Some protect you. Others can create cost, delay or hostility without producing any useful protection. The important question is not “Can I do this?” but “What does doing this achieve for me?”

Common examples

• Ignoring a notice rather than understanding it and responding deliberately.
• Appointing a surveyor because they promise to fight rather than because they appear competent and proportionate.
• Refusing to discuss practical arrangements simply because relations with the neighbour are poor.
• Trying to use the award to alter planning or design matters outside the surveyors’ proper role.
• Insisting on unnecessary information or conditions that do not relate to the statutory dispute.
• Encouraging prolonged fee arguments that provide you with no practical benefit.
• Refusing reasonable arrangements for access where a statutory right of access is properly being exercised.
• Treating every minor concern as a formal dispute instead of first asking whether it can be resolved directly.
• Appealing an award where the point has little practical consequence.
• Using security for expenses or other protections as a tactical weapon rather than because there is a genuine basis for them.

Ask three questions before escalating

If you cannot answer those questions clearly, escalation may be serving the dispute rather than serving you.

• What specific risk to my property or rights am I trying to address?
• Is this something the Party Wall Act can actually deal with?
• Will the step I am about to take improve my position enough to justify the cost and friction it creates?