Overview
When an adjoining owner is worried or annoyed, it can be tempting to appoint a surveyor who promises to “fight” the building owner. That may sound reassuring, but a party wall surveyor is not appointed as your advocate. Their statutory function is to determine the dispute impartially.
What a poor appointment can do to you
The danger is not merely inconvenience to the building owner. A badly run process can distract from what actually protects you. Time spent arguing about irrelevant design preferences is time not spent checking the excavation, temporary support, access arrangements, weathering, working method or other matters that may genuinely affect your property.
- Turn straightforward questions into prolonged disputes.
- Demand information that is not necessary to determine the statutory issues.
- Argue about matters outside the Act instead of securing useful protections.
- Create delays that do not improve your position.
- Generate correspondence and fees without producing a better award.
- Damage working relations with the other surveyor and the neighbour.
- Lose credibility when a genuinely important issue later needs to be raised.
- Expose one or both owners to third-surveyor costs if unnecessary disputes escalate.
A difficult surveyor is not automatically a strong surveyor
A good surveyor should be prepared to disagree firmly where necessary. They should also know when not to disagree. The skill is judgement: identifying what matters, explaining why it matters and resolving it proportionately.
What to choose instead
- Clear communication.
- Regular party-wall experience.
- An ability to distinguish important issues from noise.
- A proportionate approach to information and protection.
- A record of progressing matters rather than merely generating correspondence.
- Someone who will tell you when a point you want to pursue is outside the Act or unlikely to help you.