Advice from Craig
Do I need to tell my neighbours?
The short answer
It is advisable, Craig says, and if your extension went through planning, the council’s notices will already have gone out. His stronger advice is to protect the relationship. Madisons has seen friendly neighbours say at the end of a build that the work cracked their walls, moved their floors or caused damp. If nobody recorded the condition of their house beforehand, nobody can say what was already there. Where you are working close to a neighbour’s house, a party wall surveyor and a party wall agreement keep it clean cut. Madisons can advise and introduce you to the right people. See how we run house extensions and loft conversions.
Transcript
A lot of people do say about, do I need to tell my neighbours? It is advisable, and at the end of the day, they would have had planning notices go up or go out prior to your extension being approved by the council. But one thing I would say is, we have experienced it before, where the neighbour, someone that’s been known for years, very, very nice, definitely would never cause us any problems. At the end of the build, then go to the neighbour and go, actually, you’ve created all of these issues in my house. We’ve got cracked walls and this, and our floors have moved, and all this, and the skirting boards are cracked, and there’s damp.
And ultimately, if you don’t have a party wall surveyor, you may have never been in their house. You might have always just had a chat over the fence, and they’ve always been really nice, but because no one’s actually been in their house, no one actually knows if that stuff was there before.
So my advice would be, if you are working within a certain parameter of their house, it is probably sensible to involve a party wall surveyor, because ultimately it then just keeps it clean cut and allows you to maintain your relationship with the neighbour, rather than falling out over you thinking it might be a lie. It might not be, but you might think it is, and therefore you’ve built this lovely house, this lovely extension, and then you don’t live here anymore because you don’t like the neighbour. So just protect your interests. Contact the neighbours, go for a party wall agreement. We can help you with that if need be. Just ask the question and we can advise you, and introduce you to people for that. Just protect where you live. You’re spending the money, why ruin it?
Transcript lightly edited for reading: filler words and false starts removed. The captions on the film are word for word.
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