The situation
A developer planned a new two storey basement car park, with service and drainage trenches, on a site in Harlow, Essex. Next door stood a block of flats with a management company and individual leaseholders. The excavation would go deeper than the block’s foundations, and the developer’s surveyor served notices under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 for a new wall on the line of junction and for adjacent excavation.
The brief
Avalon was appointed as adjoining owner’s surveyor by the management company and by two flat leaseholders. The residents needed to know their building would be watched while the ground beside it was dug out, and that money would be there to put things right if the development stalled half built.
What we did
- Three appointments, three awardsOne award for each adjoining owner, so every party’s position was recorded in its own document.
- Schedules of conditionThe two flats and the external areas recorded in detail before the excavation began.
- Monitoring added at our requestSix targets on the block’s end wall, read daily on three axes, with an amber trigger at 5mm that moved readings to four times a day and a red trigger at 8mm that stopped the work.
- Security for expensesA notice under section 12 led to £38,000 being held by solicitors: enough to backfill an unfinished basement, plus an allowance for cracking.
- Controls in the awardMethod statements for the excavation, piling, shoring and temporary works, work to the engineer’s design, fixed working hours, insurance, access arrangements and as built drawings.
The RICS standard
The work followed the RICS professional standard Party wall legislation and procedure, and the appointment sits within the party wall section of the RICS Neighbourly Matters Services schedule.
For owners, the government’s guide Party walls and building work and its explanatory booklet explain the Act in plain English.
The security was released only once the monitoring engineer confirmed no movement and the flats had been inspected.
The outcome
The basement was completed about eight months after the notices were served. When the developer’s side pressed for an early release of the security, it stayed in place until the engineer had confirmed the monitoring raised no concerns and we had inspected the flats. We found no damage caused by the works, and the full sum was then released by joint authority.
