A lack of understanding of the Party Wall etc Act 1996

It is almost 18 years since the Party Wall etc Act 1996 came into force in the majority of England and Wales and yet still we frequently come across many people who are largely unaware of the nature and extent of works that typically, may fall subject to the Act and thus, require service of written Notice on the adjoining property owner(s) before commencing works.

When that comment is applied to members of the general public it is perhaps understandable, but we still find that we far too frequently have to make that criticism about individuals (and also companies) who are actively involved in the design and construction of building works (especially domestic projects).  

In the perception of the customer these individuals and companies might be expected to have a reasonable working knowledge – or at the very least a good awareness of – most if not all of the technical and legal matters that pertain to their building project – and that would include the Party Wall etc Act 1996.

But in far too many instances they frankly do not…..

As an example:-

The most recent “hot topic” insofar as works falling subject to the Party Wall Act is concerned relates to the notion of what constitutes “cutting into a party wall”?

Section 2(2) of the Act states that “…A building owner shall have the following rights….(f) to cut into a party structure for any purpose (which may be or include the purpose of inserting a damp proof course)…”

Ever since the Act came into force surveyors have been debating what “cutting into the party structure” actually includes and perhaps more importantly, what it does not include. 

It has long been held to be the case that removing wall plaster from a party wall does not fall subject to the Act; however, a decision by a Judge in the Central London County Court in 2013 determined that the removal of wall plaster using mechanical tools would constitute cutting into the party wall, whereas if the plaster was so old and dilapidated that it could be prised away using a putty knife or similar then it would not fall subject to the Act.

How many builders out there are aware of this comparatively recent development in the interpretation of the law?

Does anyone else have any experiences or comments they wish to share on this subject?

Failure to serve Notice under the Party Wall etc Act 1996

Taylor Tuxford Associates has over the past few months been involved in three formal Disputes under the Party Wall etc Act 1996 that have arisen following building works that have commenced without first serving the requisite Notice upon the adjoining property owners.  We are currently also instructed in regard to a fourth such case, which is still in the process of being determined.

The disputes in question arose because the adjoining owners in each case claimed that damage had been caused to their property as a result of the works undertaken by the building owner’s contractors.

The Party Wall etc Act requires that in instances where a building owner wishes to carry out works to their property that fall subject to the Act, then they must serve written Notice upon any affected adjoining property owners.

It is a generally held principle in English & Welsh Law that the “accused” person or corporate body is “innocent until proven guilty” and the accuser is obliged to provide that proof.  However, in instances where “work falling subject to the Act” (i.e. the Party Wall etc Act 1996) is carried out without compliance with the requirements of the Act in regard to the service of a Notice etc, then this principle may not apply.

This stems from a Court of Appeal judgement in 2003 where Lord Justice Chadwick stated in his judgement that “…if it can be shown that the damage which has occurred is the sort of damage which one may expect to occur from the nature of the works that have been carried out…he (i.e. the building owner in that instance) should not be allowed to obtain forensic advantage by his own failure to comply with the statutory requirements…”

In other words, the Judge applied a reverse burden of proof and the building owner was thus obliged to prove that the damage had NOT been caused as a result of his building works.  From our extensive experience, this is extremely difficult to achieve in the majority of cases “after the event”.

In the case of the two disputes referred to earlier, the end result was that the building owners in each instance faced substantial additional expense relating to the repair of the damage plus the fees of the surveyors in resolving the dispute.

Does anyone reading this entry believe that they may have inadvertently placed themselves in a similar position?

Taylor Tuxford Associates’ advice is simple – if you are having building works carried out, seek the advice of your architectural designer and/or your builder whether the works will in any way fall subject to the Party Wall etc Act 1996 and if that is the case, ensure that the appropriate written notice is served on the adjoining owners.

Two happy events……

We had two pieces of absolutely great news this week both concerning one of our Clients, whose subsidence claim against her Insurer is finally (after two years) moving along towards final repairs being carried out very soon to her home in Sheffield.

But by far the best news – for the same Client - was the happy arrival of triplets (all girls!) yesterday morning by Caesarean section.

We wish to send our very best wishes to our Client and her newly-extended Family and we are pleased to report that Martha and all three of her beautiful new daughters are doing well…..photos below: - 

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Specifying Minor Works

Taylor Tuxford Associates is proud to announce its involvement with “Specifying Minor Works” (ISBN 978-0-415-58351-0) which is a newly-released publication from Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

This new book, which has been edited by Patrick Reddin, was co-written by a group of four authors including Taylor Tuxford Associates’ Director, Rhys Taylor and is intended for:

• Non-technical workers in property management
• House owner/occupiers
• Property professionals
• Property maintenance workers
• Contractors

House occupiers, be they tenants or owners, together with managers of property, maintenance personnel, contractors and individual operatives are all in the front line in the battle to carry out effective works to buildings which both represent value for money and add value to those properties. 

They all in their various roles have to confront defects and inadequacies in existing buildings.  Between them they have to carry out repairs and need to be equipped to adequately assess and respond to problems.  They need to be armed not just with a means of diagnosing defects and inadequacies but also assessing the seriousness and possible consequences.

The four authors of the book – Arwel Griffith, Patrick Reddin, Rhys Taylor and Michael Wadood – are all members of the Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE).  Rhys, Patrick and Arwel are all Past Presidents of the Association and Michael is currently President-Elect of the Association.

Rhys Taylor says: “I was extremely pleased and honoured to be asked by Pat Reddin to join in with him, Arwel and Michael in writing this new edition of “Specifying Minor Works”. 

“This is the first time that I have been involved in writing a text book and, although I was only responsible for two out of the eight chapters, it certainly tested my ability to write in a manner that hopefully, readers will find easy to absorb.  I have purposefully set out my two chapters in such a way as to be readily understood by professionals and non-experienced householders alike.

“The Chapter on Neighbour Issues in particular, enabled me to put down in print a number of measures that any property owner or developer can adopt in order to try to prevent difficulties, delays and costs from occurring during a building project, simply by using a little common sense, coupled with some sound professional advice

“Specifying Minor Works” is available from all good booksellers at the recommended retail price of £29.99.  It is also available in “E-Book” format from selected suppliers.

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415583510/

Royal Charter

As those of you who are our regular customers and/or readers of these blogs will be aware, both Michelle Tuxford and Rhys Taylor have for some years both been corporate members of The Association of Building Engineers (ABE).  What you may not be aware of is that on 10 July 2013, the ABE’s petition to Her Majesty the Queen for a Royal Charter, was granted at a meeting of the Privy Council, attended by The Rt Hon Nick Clegg (Lord President), The Rt Hon Michael Gove, The Rt Hon Lord McNally and the Rt Hon George Osborne, recognising the 88-year history of the ABE and its contribution to Building Engineering in raising standards, sharing knowledge and developing professionals.

Taylor Tuxford Associates is therefore very pleased and proud to announce that as from 1^st January 2014 the Association of Building Engineers will henceforth be known as The Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE).  Moreover, as the CABE is now an Affiliate of the Engineering Council, Michelle and Rhys now additionally have the professional status of Chartered Building Engineers (CBuildE).

Royal Charter

 

Looking through the history of the Association, we should like to paraphrase a few relevant extracts from the December 2013 edition of the “Building Engineer” Journal:

 “...In the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries it was rare for professionals operating in different spheres to meet and network in the modern sense; indeed, many working in the industry were fiercely defensive of their own profession and sought to establish themselves as the leaders in the industry. Against this background, the need for closer co-operation between architects and surveyors was increasingly recognised…as a result, the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors (IAAS) was formed on 25 September 1925.

“…Although credited by many as the founder of the Association it was not until 1930 that Sir Edwin Lutyens, probably the best-known architect of the time, joined the IAAS.  The following year he became President, a post he held until 1938.

“…The role of members and their expertise and skills had begun to change by the 1970s and at the beginning of that decade the Association introduced an Engineering Surveyors section…by the beginning of the 1980s the balance of membership had shifted with over 70% specialising in Building Technology, a trend which continued over the following years and the change in expertise and practice, combined with a need for greater recognition outside of the UK led to the change of name in 1993 to “The Association of Building Engineers”

Rhys Taylor joined the former ABE as a Corporate Member in 2001 and was awarded “Fellow” Status on 17^th September 2004.  He was subsequently elected to the national ruling Council of the ABE in 2005 and elected as President of the ABE in May 2008, a role in which he was honoured to serve for one year.  Rhys is currently part-way through a one-year co-opted appointment onto the Board of Directors of the Association, having been invited to provide specific experience and input to the Board’s meetings.



Michelle Tuxford gained Corporate Membership of the ABE on 14^th February 2008 and has for the past four years served as an elected member of the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Committee of the ABE.  Michelle has just completed her second year as the Y&H Regional Secretary and will continue in that role going forwards as the Regional Secretary for the CABE. 

As a Past President, Rhys was honoured to receive an invitation to attend the formal presentation of the Royal Charter and Seal to the Association by His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester.  The ceremony, which took place at Gray’s Inn, London on 6^th December, was opened by the CABE’s Patron Lord Lytton and President Stanley Barker-McGuire, who welcomed guests including Sir David Brewer, Lord Lieutenant of Greater London and Dr Peter Bonfield, Group Chief Executive of the Building Research Establishment (BRE).



CABE patron, Lord Lytton

The CABE’s Chief Executive Dr John Hooper said in his speech that “…Today, the granting of Charters is comparatively rare to years gone by and the Association had to meet stringent requirements, demonstrating its solid record of achievement, the calibre of its members and its role in educating building engineering professionals.

The reception was thoroughly enjoyable and Rhys had the opportunity to meet up with a number of old friends and colleagues from both within the Association and elsewhere, including Past Presidents Chris Dawson, Dave Phythian, Diane Marshall, Beryl Menzies, Steve Barker, Pat Reddin, Arwel Griffith, Ken Blount, David Smith, John Humphries and Michael Cassidy, amongst others.  He also had a long discussion with Malcolm Lelliott, President of the Faculty of Party Wall Surveyors and somewhat shorter discussions with Graham Watts and Paul Everall OBE, Chief Executives respectively, of the Construction Industry Council (CIC) and Local Authority Building Control (LABC).

By far the most enjoyable bit for Rhys, however, was having the opportunity to meet all of the CABE HQ Staff (otherwise than in the HQ Office building).  It was a really good move on the part of the Management Team to allow them all the opportunity to go down to London and enjoy the experience.

Attentive audience

HRH The Duke of Gloucester

The Directors of Taylor Tuxford Associates are very proud of the company’s connections with the Chartered Association of Building Engineers and look forward to many more years working as members of the CABE in providing Chartered Building Engineer services to our Clients, both within the Yorkshire & Humber Region and beyond, in the fields of :-

Architectural Design

Structural Design

Structural Engineer’s Inspections / Reports

Party Wall Act matters

Boundary Disputes

Technical Expert Witness Services

More photographs taken on the day can be found on our facebook page by clicking on the following link: -

Taylor Tuxford on Facebook

The Queen's Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education 2013

I enjoyed a very pleasant evening recently at St James’ Palace, London (no less) where I was attending a Reception to announce the Prize-winners in the tenth round of the Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education. 

Invitation card

These awards, presented biennially, recognise and celebrate outstanding innovative work within UK higher and further education institutions and its beneficial and practical effect.  They are the highest form of national recognition open to a UK academic or vocational institution.

The winning entries (of which there were twenty in total on this occasion) represent work by individual departments and research groups, major infrastructure and enterprise projects, vocational and technical training programmes and the application of cutting-edge research.

Entries undergo a rigorous process of independent external assessment.  This includes review by national and international experts and specialists covering the relevant disciplines, reference to government departments and UK devolved governments with a particular interest in the fields of work under consideration and, to professional and other bodies and sources. 

I was proud several years ago to be invited to be one of the members of the reviewing body – known as “Readers” – of which I understand there are about 350 or so in total and something of the order of half of us were present at the reception yesterday evening at the Palace.

The “Readers” are effectively the early-stage adjudicators/judges and are asked to study several different submissions, assess their merit and also to suggest any areas where further information in support of the submission might be requested.  The best submissions from these initial rounds then go forward for more rigorous assessment by the main judging panel.

This year, I “read” two submissions – one from a Northern Ireland College of Further Education which had promoted a scheme to encourage its students to become involved at a detailed level in construction schemes for local charities and public bodies and the second submission (talk about being off at a tangent) was for a University’s programme to assist the training and development of elite athletes in the run up to the London Olympics and beyond.  One of their star athletes involved in the programme was not other than double Olympic Champion, Mo Farah.  Unfortunately, neither of these submissions sufficiently impressed the later round judges sufficiently to win one of the Prizes.

Winning institutions in this round focused on applied research in a range of areas including amongst others:-

·         Multidisciplinary work on environmental, ecological and economic challenges: Cardiff University; Cornwall College; Newcastle University

·     Innovation in surgery training, human anatomy and forensic ID and ground-breaking applications in archaeology: The University of Edinburgh; University of Dundee; University of Leicester

·         Manufacturing techniques and processes and industrial design: Loughborough University; The University of Manchester; University of the Arts, London

I was fortunate to speak briefly with one of the winners from the University of Oxford, a neuro-physician, who had pioneered practical and cost-effective improvements in the prevention of Strokes, and also, with Peter Chenery, the Chief Executive of the Royal Anniversary Trust, which sponsors and promotes the Awards.

 

Prize winners

I also bumped into a couple of Past-Presidents from the Association of Building Engineers, Arwel Griffith and Diane Marshall (it was Diane who had the dubious honour of draping the ABE Presidential Chain of Office around my own neck in the House of Lords in May 2008).  I didn’t get the chance to speak for very long with Arwel, but had plenty of time to do so with Diane – who I haven’t seen for ages it seems – and shared a taxi back to Kings Cross after the Reception was finished.

As a footnote, Anne has been telling everyone that she was especially impressed when I was originally asked to be a “Reader” for a set of Awards primarily aimed at the “Education” sector…….apparently she believe that this constitutes some sort of official recognition that not only can I “read” but apparently therefore, I also must be “educated”!

Hmmmm…..talk about damning with faint praise!

Rhys Taylor

Association of Building Engineers annual conference 2013

Anne and I, along with our good friend and colleague Robin Brown, Director of our Associated Company RBA Consulting of Arksey, Doncaster, were very pleased to be able to attend this year’s ABE Annual Conference at the Windmill Village Hotel, Coventry, on 14^th-15^th November.  This was the 51^st Annual conference that the ABE has held and marked another major milestone in the Association’s history – the awarding of a Royal Charter – as, from 1^st January 2014, the Association of Building Engineers will henceforth be known as the “Chartered Association of Building Engineers”.

 

Lady Godiva

The formal presentation of the Royal Charter will take place on 6^th December at Gray’s Inn, London and will be carried out by HRH The Duke of Gloucester and I have been invited to attend that event, also.

As is always the case with ABE Conferences, there are two essential elements to the event, these being the opportunity to receive presentations from leaders of the construction industry (all contributing towards one’s annual CPD Requirement) and also, to meet up with old friends and colleagues from all round the UK and overseas.

 

Beryl Menzies, Kate Ilott & Kate Denne

This year’s seminar speakers included Jack Pringle (Chairman, Construction Industry Council), Claire Curtis-Thomas (Chief Executive, British Board of Agrément), Dr Peter Bonfield OBE (Chief Executive, Building Research Establishment) and speakers from various other organisations including EC Harris, BB7, CIC, HSE, Association for Project Safety, Association of CDM Co-ordinators, Laing O’Rourke, BM Trada and the NHBC.

The conference was formally opened this year by the ABE’s new Patron, the Earl of Lytton.  Lord Lytton, who is himself a practising Chartered Surveyor, was already an Honorary Fellow of the ABE and has been a major contributor to numerous Government working parties and advisory groups, including one which in the mid-1990s led directly to the Party Wall etc Act 1996 being brought into force in England and Wales.

 

Jim Charlton & Robin Brown

The closing presentation of the Conference was by the ABE’s Chief Executive Dr John Hooper, assisted by the two Deputy Chief Executives Kate Ilott and Kevin Blunden, who brought the Conference Delegates fully up-to-speed with the arrangements for the change to Chartered status for the Association and of course, it members.  Subject to maintaining at least their required minimum CPD (Continuing Professional Development) requirements of 35 hours annually, corporate Members and Fellows will be able to register with the Engineering Council as Chartered Building Engineers. 

The highlight of the social side of the Conference was the black-tie dinner on the Thursday evening, which was attended by over 150 delegates and guests.  Those members attending the dinner who had already registered their wish to be “upgraded” to chartered status and, who had also registered their CPD records up to date, were presented with their new Certificates and also, their Certificates as Chartered Building Engineers; however, the certificates are of course, forward-dated and will not come into force until 1^st January 2014.

Antony & Patricia Wedge

Lisa Griffith, Anne-Marie Wadood, Christine Samuels & Colin Bell's partner, Karen

We thoroughly enjoyed the evening – meeting many old friends and a few new ones as well.  It was especially good to once again see several ABE Past Presidents, including Beryl Menzies, Pat Reddin, Robert Biggs, Ken Blount, Nick Himmans, Colin Bell and Immediate Past President, John Humphries.  Also there was Past President Arwel Griffith, who received a Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his many years service to the ABE at both regional and national level, including for several years as the ABE’s Honorary Treasurer.

On the Friday morning, whilst the delegates were attempting to sober-up after the Conference dinner, their partners (Anne included) were taken on a tour of Coventry City Centre including the Cathedral.  I can recall my Mother telling me that she was in service in a large house in Hereford during the 2^nd World War and she could remember being taken to the top of a local hill to witness the orange glow from the fires that raged in Coventry following a bombing attack by the Luftwaffe.  The old Cathedral was gutted by the fires and a new Cathedral was later built alongside the original – the ruins of which now form a monument to those who perished in the conflict.

 

Coventry Cathedral

Coventry Cathedral

The conference included a trade exhibition with a dozen or so stands promoting their first class services & products to the conference delegates.  It was especially good to meet up with a few old friends amongst the exhibitors also, including the ABE Yorkshire and Humber Regional Chairman Basil Parylo on the LABC stand, and Paul Shepherd and Jonathan Thomas on the Wykamol Products stand.

All in all, it was as always, a thoroughly enjoyable – albeit rather tiring – few days away from the office routine and we can’t wait to repeat the exercise once again, at a future event.

Rhys Taylor