OUR RENOVATION JOURNEY: PARTY WALL ACTS AND WHY WE NEED THEM

The back of our New House. We needed a party wall act with both our neighbours (Even the one on the left).

If you’re thinking of submitting plans for an extension or have already submitted them, but have heard the term ‘Party Wall’ and don’t know if it applies to you, then this post is for YOU!

I found this area all quite mind boggling because I didn’t think Party Wall’s applied to detached houses, but it still does. And what you don’t want to do, is leave it to the last minute like I did.

So, today’s post is all about… you guessed it… Party Walls.

Why you need one, what they’re for and why they can be a massive headache if you don’t get it sorted before your building work starts, not to mention the extra cost which you might not have accounted for if you have to involve a party wall surveyor.

So, what is a party wall Act?

Sadly, it’s not a party of any kind. Boooo! And it doesn’t even have to involve a ‘Wall’ to be needed.

The Party Wall Act came into force on 1 July 1997 and applies throughout England and Wales. (The Act does not apply to Scotland or Northern Ireland)

 The Act provides a framework for preventing or resolving disputes in relation to party walls, party structures, boundary walls and excavations near neighbouring buildings.

Basically, in a nutshell, it serves as a legal document between you and your neighbour to stop you from falling out when the digging and building work commences (although it can’t actually stop you from falling out). But it’s there to protect your lovely neighbour’s property. This could be from you hammering a massive steal into their walls for an extension, or it could be because you need to excavate near their foundations to dig your own foundations. It’s your way of politely serving notice that you will be whacking a great big steel into their neighbouring wall when building your extension or digging next to their foundations which you’ve now had planning permission for.  You’re politely letting them know in a legal document – aka serving notice.

And it’s there to cover the neighbour so that if you cause any damage, you will make good - aka resolve any disputes.

Who needs a party wall Act?

Anyone intending to carry out work (anywhere in England and Wales) of the kinds described in the Act must give Adjoining Owners notice of their intentions. The Act applies even to Crown, Government and Local Authority owned property.

What does the Act Cover?

• Various work that is going to be carried out directly to an existing party wall or party structure – ie on a Mid terrace house – loft conversions between neighbouring properties, ground floor/ 1st floor extensions on Semi-detached houses.

•    New building at or astride the boundary line between properties.

• Excavation within 3 or 6 metres of a neighbouring building(s) or structure(s), depending on the depth of the hole or proposed foundations. So in a nutshell, if your property is within 3-6 meters of your neighbour’s property and you will be digging for foundation work, you will still need a Party Wall Act even if your walls aren’t adjoining.

The document

You can find generic documents online which will help as a guide when serving notice on your neighbour. Just make sure you amend the details to be yours and your neighbours. And in the foundation section, try and give as much information from your structural engineer as you possibly can. I.e.- will there be any special foundations?

Then attach a consent form for them to sign and return, and make sure you stipulate a date for which the building work will commence. You’re meant to give your neighbours TWO months’ notice – but if your neighbours are nice and understanding you can talk to them about bringing the start date forward.

I’ve linked templates below that you can adapt and use for this purpose. - Because sharing is caring…

DOWNLOAD A FREE PARTY WALL TEMPLATE LETTER

and

DOWNLOAD A FREE PARTY WALL CONSENT FORM

Can they refuse to sign it?

Yes, they can. But just remember that even if they do refuse to sign the free Party Wall Act, it doesn’t mean your building work can’t happen. It will just delay things until you have appointed a Party Wall surveyor and a Party Wall Award has been served to the neighbour.

What is a Party Wall Surveyor and What do they do?

This is where it gets a little complicated. If your neighbour refuses to sign the free document, they are entitled to have their own Party Wall Surveyor – at YOUR COST.

They are actually entitled to their own Party Wall Surveyor, in addition to one that will represent you. I.e. two different Party Wall Surveyors. They can even request a third to act as an adjudicator if they really want to be difficult and these will all be at YOUR COST.

But they can also choose to use one surveyor which will represent the two of you. This is the ideal option and will be the least expensive option to you. This is what YOU want.

The Surveyor will do an assessment of your neighbour’s property which will involve taking numerous photos of their internals, externals and their garden, noting any previous movement, cracks etc. In the long run this will help you if they say there’s been movement and your building work caused it etc.

Then once they have done the assessment, they will work on a schedule to ensure the excavation or structural work is done as safely and with least disruption as possible to the neighbouring property and then the Party Wall Award will be Served. This is where your structural engineer will come into play in a big way as they will be asked by the Party Wall Surveyor to go into more detail regarding foundations or joining walls/ steels etc. I’d also make sure you have this cost covered in your structural engineers initial quote, as you don’t want them asking for more money when you’ve already paid them and now have Surveyors to pay for as this cost can suddenly escalate quite rapidly.

Your structural engineer will produce a series of sketches like this for the Party wall Surveyor to show the relationship with the neighbouring property.

How much will a Party Award cost?

You’re looking at between £700-£1500 (including VAT) per surveyor. It depends on the project size and where in the UK you are located.

Keep in mind that if you need a Party Wall surveyor award with each neighbour this could double or even triple in cost for you.

When Should I serve the Party Wall Act to my neighbours?

Do it as soon as possible. As I mentioned before you’re meant to give your neighbours two months’ notice before starting work, and you will need to have this in place before starting, otherwise you will only be able to do the work which is within 6m or more from their property.

You can even serve the notice to your neighbours at the same time as you submit your planning application. This way you can talk your neighbours through your plans and gauge their reaction to whether or not you think they will be happy to sign the free notice and if not start researching for a surveyor.

It’s a stressful time, but once you get over this part the building work is all GO GO GO.

Good luck with your build if you’re about to start one, or if your knee deep in one already send me the address and I’ll send the wine to help steady the nerves. Just kidding. I need ALL the wine right now for mine.

OUR RENOVATION JOURNEY : OUR PLANS FOR 'RAT HOUSE'

OUR RENOVATION JOURNEY: OUR PLANS FOR 'RAT HOUSE'

On Tuesday 22nd October 2019 our mortgage lender transferred the funds to our solicitor and then the email came in. We were now the owners of a pile of slightly crumbly bricks, a lot of cobwebs, some small rodents, a persistent musty smell of damp/ dog poop which still won’t shift and some adult reading material and teeth which we hope belonged to a canine friend and weren’t from the human variety- but we’ll skate over that part.

Although someone lived here up until quite recently, it’s not quite up to my Beyoncé standards, and most importantly our energetic toddlers who I’m sure would love to stick his fingers in an unearthed plug socket (Always wear rubber sole shoes guys).

As tempting as a caravan in the back garden sounded to my other half, who is basically more of a diva than I am when it comes to cleanliness and hygiene, we opted to begging my dad if we could move in with him. And Luckily for us he’s a complete and utter ledge and said yes to us moving in “for a few months”. Four months later and we’re still in his house, but things are starting to progress, and we have some big plans for ‘Rat House’.

WE’VE GOT PLANNING PERMISSION!!!

In November 2019 we submitted our drawings to the council for approval.

Did you know that you have to be the sole owner of a property for 21 days or more before you can submit an application? Otherwise, you need to give notice to the previous owner and get their consent. I didn’t know this, and quite frankly we couldn’t be arsed to go down the route of seeking approval as buying the house had been stressful enough, so we decided what’s another 21 days to wait in the scheme of things.

I know a friend who got consent from the previous owner and applied for planning before they exchanged, only for the vendor to pull out and to sell to someone else offering more money for a property with planning permission. You’re basically applying for them to have planning, so don’t do anything too hasty would be my advice.

But back to the plans, what plans I hear you ask. I’ve mentioned before how the house is pretty girthy but isn’t very deep, don’t worry I’m still talking about the house guys – head out the gutter. It’s also only three bedrooms, which is fine, but it doesn’t look like it only has three bedrooms and seems like its crying out for a fourth bedroom. Plus, in order for us to add value in the long run and hopefully work with our family’s growing needs (I’m not pregnant nan), we would just like a fourth bedroom for family to stay. Not to mention the dream dressing room, an en suite bathroom, family bathroom and dreamy kitchen island, so it needs to be extended.

This is the existing layout. On the ground floor, you enter into the middle of the house with two reception rooms; one on either side of the hallway which leads to a small kitchen and ironically called utility- It contains a boiler which doesn’t actually work.

On the first floor there are three bedrooms, a bathroom and separate WC.

The existing layout

The current layout of our 1930’s detached house.

The approved plans

The side profile showing the existing and approved plans

The approved proposed drawings for our 1930’s detached house.

Now onto the super exciting part- our approved plans. We have got permission for a 7m x 9.7m square extension to be bolt onto the ground floor of the house, doubling the depth and enabling us to have my dream kitchen/ dining room with 6.7m worth of worktop/ cupboards and the dream kitchen island.

This extension room will also house a sofa/ tv area, a dining table and chairs for family open plan living. Above this extension will be a 3.75m deep double story extension, and there will also be a 2m x 5m roof lantern which will let in more light and will help with our north facing garden.

The existing kitchen is going to be become our utility and part coat cupboard accessed from the hallway, and the under stair larder cupboard is going to be become our downstairs toilet. Finally we get a downstairs loo… now my nan come come over! Whoop! Boxing day at ours, yea?

For the windows at the back we will be looking to add some aluminium/ Mondrian style steel and glass doors on the ground floor and aluminium framed windows on the first floor.

On the first floor it gets even more exciting, we’re going to be closing off the existing bathroom and adding a doorway from the master bedroom to create a dressing room, which will lead onto a ensuite. Then off the landing will be 3 bedrooms and a large family bathroom.

WHATS IT GOING TO LOOK LIKE?

That is the million dollar question. I’d love to show you my many mood boards, but in all honesty I change my mind like Katie Price changes husbands, and although I have a bit of a vision on what its going to look like, all of this might change next week.

But heres a few ideas so far…

The Dressing Room

I love the idea of a contrast ceiling and built in cupboards. I also love how we’ll be able to see through from our bedroom to the ensuite through the dressing room. Hopefully our carpenter will have some clever ideas for our doors and storage too as we won’t have as much space between the walls as we did with our old dressing room.

Dressing Room image via Pinterest.

Kitchen & Utility Room

The things we know we want in the kitchen are as follows.. A kitchen island, brass taps and hardware, marble/quartz worktops and some gold metallic in either kick plates, splash backs or even cupboards. These are my wish list features so far. Oh and some black aluminium glass doors into our utility would be ideal so we can see the sink and tap through the doors.

Image from Bakes London.

Image from Bakes London.

The above images are inspiration for the layout and the glass doors. The downstairs shows a dreamy brass kitchen with the most beautiful brass splash back.

Image via The Nordroom

Image via T Magazine.

The Play room - AKA the sitting room on the right

This room is marked as a study on the ground floor floor-plan, but it will probably become our second lounge aka Otis’ play room. The vision for this room is Wallpaper, wallpaper and more wallpaper. I don’t know which one, but I love the idea of going all over in a statement print. I’m even considering wallpapering the ceiling too but it all depends on the paper. I don’t want it to feel like a play room in anyway though. Our long term plan is to get a piano for Otis one day and this the room which it will live. It also has a fireplace which is in need of replacing so the hunt it on for a new fireplace.

Image Via Pinterest

Image Via House Of Hackney

Image Via House Of Hackney

Our Grown up lounge- AKA The sitting room on the left

Currently my head is in a red wine fuzz, or it could just be the bottle of cabernet sauvignon I just smashed back while writing this tonight. I want this room to ooze glamour and opulence (whilst allowing a toddler to trash it during the day, and then it all slide back into place for mama’s chill time in the evening). The tick list goes.. maybe some panelling, marble fireplace (This is already sourced from Stovax and I’m very excited to show you), velvet sofa and hopefully the dreamiest side board you have ever seen because I’ve never owned a sideboard and I feel like a proper grown up being able to have one. (The side board of dreams was seen at a Heals press event and I can’t find it on line. Hopefully it still exists… *stressed emoji face*).

Image via Instagram - roisinlaffertykld

Image via instagram - zoffanyfw

Image via Pinterest.

Image via Pinterest.

I could go on and on… but this is where I’m up to so far in my head. Plus, as I mentioned before this all subject to change because A) I change my mind all the time and B) The pot of cash which we have isn’t endless and is already being eaten away by a party wall award and new steels which have suddenly appeared in the plans, so you’re just going to have to watch this space and my instagram feed for the latest updates. And in the meantime I’m sure I’ll be documenting a lot of it on here.

And if any of you have tips on how to manage building stress and messages from our builder like “We need to talk about what we found today when we lifted up the floor boards (which hopefully won’t involve the police) and the cost implications?”, then send them my way as I think I’m going to need them. Wish me and most importantly my husband luck, as he will be taking most of the verbal abuse which I’ll be off loading over this coming year! x

OUR RENOVATION JOURNEY : WE BOUGHT A 1930'S HOUSE; AKA 'THE RAT HOUSE'

We bought a 1930’s house aka ‘Rat House’

Our new ‘Rat’ House - A 1930’s detached house in Hertfordshire.

Let’s recap. In May 2019 we had accepted an offer on our house after having it on the market for a couple of months and the search was now on to find our next home. The thing about the UK property market is you can’t really look at houses until you’ve sold yours. Well, not properly anyways. Some estate agents might let you make an appointment to view, but others, the ones with much more common sense, won’t let you view unless you have your property firmly on the market and ideally SOLD ( not including first time buyers). I get it, but it’s tough as it’s a big catch twenty-two scenario, because who in their right mind would sell their home without finding something else to buy?  What if you accept an offer, but can’t find anything else? How long will a buyer wait? The answer to that question I have found is… Not very long.

Now we were “sold” we were viewing houses every weekend in an area which we had pinpointed as our dream location. The problem with our dream location was that it only had approximately twelve roads to choose from which sounds like a lot. But when you realise that at least six of these roads have houses which are way above your budget it swiftly brings you back down to earth. The competition was fierce too, with estate agents telling us that couples had “moved into rented” in order to make them more desirable vs us in a chain. The area we wanted was a hot spot for great schools, and we would bump into the same families viewing house after house, all desperate to send our children to the local primary school.

Our budget wasn’t great either for what we wanted. You see, in my head I’m Beyoncé and I want one of those Instagram houses with a huge kitchen island, state-of-the-art appliances and smart home technology. I wanted a huge garden for Otis to play in and a dressing room for my clothes (note how I actually put my sons needs ahead of mine). But the reality was we didn’t have the budget for anything like this in the area which we wanted to be in.

I was on maternity leave, due to be returning to work after a year off any day now, and the prospect of finding a home was starting to stress me out.

Then one day walking back from a baby class whilst pushing Otis in the buggy, I got chatting to a fellow new mum friend who had recently moved into her new home, in the same area that we wanted to buy in, and if by magic she mentioned that the run down ‘rat house’ (her words not mine) across the road from her was going on the market today.

Interesting I thought, it’s probably out of our budget. It was everything we were looking for, it was detached – which wasn’t even in our criteria as we thought detached houses really were only for Beyoncé.  It was double fronted.. again, very Bey; it had a huge garden and had the potential to turn into a beautiful family home.

I called the estate agent immediately. I was greeted with a less than friendly voice on the other end who stated that the house was already sold to a developer and that it wasn’t ‘mortgageable’ for me to buy, and that I would need to pay cash. But how can it be sold already I asked?  You only photographed it yesterday? There was no sign of it online, no marketing on right move, no advertising on their website, not even a floor plan with square footage for me show you now. I pleaded with them to be to be shown around.  They humoured me and sent this man boy in a tracksuit from the local office to show us around.

I knew it was a bit of a shit tip inside, but come on pal you’re meant to be selling me a house not something out the back of your car, and the irony is the name of the estate agents was the one that makes suits *wink (Rhymes with Sailors) * anyway, moving on…

We took my dad who isn’t a builder, but he’s one of those blokes who thinks they know everything about building work. We also took a real builder who thankfully did know a thing or two about houses, and we even got a visit from the local undercover police who wanted to know what we and the man-boy in a tracksuit were doing inside this derelict house at 11am on a Friday morning.

But none of this drama put us off, we were in love. It had a hallway big enough to fit at least three buggies in (this was important to me for when friends visit with their babes), two large reception rooms and the world’s worst kitchen. Not just because it was tiny. It was so tiny but it also looked like someone had been murdered in it and had some new form of bacteria festering around the hobs, and dog poop under the counter where small rodents were running around.

The price was great, so surely it was too good to be true. Or maybe no one in their right mind would take on such a project.  We offered asking price within an hour of viewing and were told it would be passed on. The following day someone new from the estate agents rang and asked us to get our sealed bid in by midday on Monday. I asked if our offer had been declined? No answer. “Best offer by Monday, ok?”. No, not really. What was going on. I smelt a rat, or perhaps I still had one on the bottom of my trainer. It was gross inside and still full of the previous owners’ contents and his dogs’ shit all over the place.

Worried we were going to lose it we managed to get hold of a neighbour who knew the vendor (Thank you kind Mum friend, I honestly believe the fate of our friendship had everything to do with this story). We managed to get hold of the vendor and asked if he had received our offer. “What offer? It’s not had any viewings yet” he replied.

To cut a long story short, although this story is already quite long (and probably boring to most) , we ended up buying the house directly from the vendor which I reckon you probably already guessed by the title of this blog post. I’m not sure what the estate agents were playing at, well I do, I’m guessing it something to do with a large brown envelope of cash on their desk each month, but it would seem they had undervalued the property deliberately to sell onto a developer, who in return would do it up and re sell it on, aka ‘flipping it’. Making them double commission.

We ended up paying 20% more than the original asking price as we felt it was worth that, and we weren’t in it to make money.  We just wanted this amazing, smelly, beautiful house as it had bags of potential and we also didn’t want to see someone be ripped off, nor see this lovely house potentially be knocked down.

I’d love to say that was the end of all the drama, and although as I said we did end up buying it, we did face a couple more hurdles after the blip with the estate agent.

The mortgage. Oh yes, remember that thing you need to actually buy a house if you’re not Alan Sugar. The first lender that came out to value the ‘rat’ house wouldn’t loan on it as there was an offending tree in the garden. Never mind the fact that there wasn’t even running water and there had clearly been a fire in the hallway. The tree in the garden was the biggest issue.

We had to instruct a structural engineer to do a structural survey, which ended up costing us £600 to tell us what we already knew, and that it was in fact structurally sound. Even my dad could tell it was structurally sound. Just kidding, he had no idea.

This was all before we had even signed the dotted line. Before ratty house was actually ours.

We completed on the purchase of ‘rat house’ in the October of 2019, and we completed on our sale in the September of 2019.  The one-month gap was a right ball ache and set us back a month on doing anything to it, it also added an extra month to all our belongings in storage. But Rat house was now ours.

We just had to figure out what to do first, and also find somewhere else to live, as the inside wasn’t very habitable.. unless you like poop and small rodents.

So let me introduce to you our beautiful old girl ’Rat House’. Our detached, double fronted, slightly girthy but not very deep 1930’s house in Hertfordshire.

The photos were taken in two stages…

Stage 1. When we first completed on it- still with all the previous owners belongings in.

(We bought it like this to help hurry up the sale as the previous owner didn’t want to clear it)

Stage 2. Once we had cleared it.

WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!

We sold our house!

Our sold house in Watford.

The floor plan of our victorian terrace, spread over three floors.

I’m a little behind on my blog posts, so I apologise if you already know, but in September 2019 we sold our beloved house.  

After eight years renovating our gorgeous Victorian Mid Terrace, we thought the time was right to make hay as they say, and get it sold.

Dressing room doors - Farrow and Ball Hague Blue. Rug from The cotswold company. Wallpaper from House of Hackney.

In January 2019 we started talking about moving. Our son Otis was almost eight months old and he was starting to crawl, and life as we had previously known it was changing for the better. Everything was great, but our house started to niggle at us. We had fallen out of love with it. The steps up to our front door which I had previously loved started to grate on me every time I entered and exited with the buggy, the narrow 90cm wide hallway was a nightmare to navigate when visitors came over, let alone move a buggy through, and the three floors of town house living which I had longed for weren’t working for our young family.

Our old bathroom. Metro tiles and Wallpaper from Florence Broadhurst .

Plus, the local schools were, well, less than average and although we adored our direct neighbours, some of the other residences in the vicinity lacked respect for the community and I worried about what our sons future would look like in ten year’s time if we stayed living there for schools and after school clubs. Plus the lack of grass and garden space for him to roam and play saddened me deeply.

Walls in Farrow and Ball Railings. Green velvet sofa from West Elm, Navy velvet sofa from John Lewis, rug from West Elm, and drinks trolley from M&S.

Walls in Farrow and Ball Railings. Green velvet sofa from West Elm, Navy velvet sofa from John Lewis, rug from West Elm, and drinks trolley from M&S.

The temptation of looking on Right Move at properties for sale left me feeling frustrated that we weren’t in a position to make an offer so, in the February of 2019 we decided to see what happened and list it with a local estate agent

Loft extension bedroom. Walls in Farrow and Ball Railings.

Loft bedroom, painted in Farrow and Ball Railings.

We had it valued by four local estate agents and we were so blown away by one which valued it at a higher than average price, we decided to list it with them. After many viewings and lots of interest it wasn’t sold. Why hadn’t it sold in its first two weeks? Was it too expensive? Had we been charmed into thinking it was worth more than it really was?

I’m sure the uncertainty of Brexit wasn’t helping our situation. Were house prices set to fall? Was it the timing? We’re less people looking to move? Or were we just too expensive?

We were getting the footfall through the door, but just not the offers. Then an offer came in much lower than our asking price. Unwilling to act in haste we declined and decided to move estate agents, and lowered the asking price. Within two weeks we were sold, and we got (our new) asking price.

Grey kitchen from Ikea. Dining room Table, chairs and rug all from West Elm.

Grey kitchen from Ikea.

Wallpaper from Divine Savages - Deco Martini. Paint is all Farrow and ball Railings.

Our loft ensuite bathroom. Wall colour ; Farrow and Ball Pink Ground.

Otis’ jungle nursery bedroom. Wallpaper from Milton and King. All furniture from Stokke.

You’d think it was a time of celebration.

I’d love to say we were happy, but it was a strange time. Our house was finished. Perfect in fact. We started questioning if we had ad we done the right thing by selling it? Would we find our next dream home quick enough not to risk loosing our buyer?

The hunt was on for our next home. Our ‘forever’ home. And the criteria was bigger this time. A bigger garden, great schools, space for a utility room, a driveway. All the elements which we never had before and of course some that we did have previously; space for a dressing room, an open plan kitchen dining room and be close enough to a station for commuting to work. The only issue was our budget wasn’t big enough for most of the houses which ticked these boxes, and in order to get all of the above we would have to consider a renovation.

Would we find our dream home? Well, you’ll have to check back and see.. x