Advice / suggestions very welcome…

I’m in the process of trying to buy an c1890 brick built semi-detached house with my partner.

The next door neighbours of the property we’re buying are in the process of finishing off a pretty substantial loft conversion. The size of the extension was sufficient for my mortgage / building surveyor to raise a concern about the additional load on the party wall and to recommend that our solicitor should check for the exististence of load calculations and the normal party wall documents.

After much legal to-ing and fro-ing, the sellers’ solicitors have confirmed that:

1. A notice of condition wasn’t drawn up before the works started
2. Structural load calculations don’t exist
3. The status of a formal party wall agreement is a bit vague – they can only supply a notice of commencement.

Our concern is that if we proceed with the purchase and a problem subsequently arises with the party wall, the lack of a “notice of condition” and formal party wall agreement would complicate any discussions of root cause and in turn, who should pay.

What’s the best way of dealing with this?

What’s the best way of dealing with this?

if you’re not minded to walk away (as I would), then you could sort out a warranty with the vendor. Only really worth it if you think they have the resources to honour it though.

How about get them to pay for a specific insurance policy to cover any remediation/legal/mitigation costs should anything go wrong of over the next 10 years?

You’ll need a srtuctral engineer to undertake some load calculations on the as built construction and verify the wall is adequate. The engineer shoudl be able to advise if the wall is stable and what sort of factor of safety your likely to have.

As a general rule most settlement is relatively immediate (within a few months) and if there are any serious problems I would anticipate some signs of distress, i.e. cracking, bulging etc. This should also be the case at the loading points where stress concentrates. A building surveyor should be able to spot this.

Hopefully your insurance would cover this with a covering structural engineers report?

not sure a buildings insurance policy would cover something that developed from a known, but undisclosed issue. As you say a structural engineers report would be necessary, but might also require additional premia which shouldnt be from your pocket but the vendors.

Firstly, you must live in a pretty relaxed Local Authority area as you say the loft conversion is ‘substantial’. Generally, this would immediately fall under the requirement for building regulation approval, which in turn needs structural engineering calculations. < In itself a whole new argument.

Party wall agreements can be fraught however, the owners of the new property have a duty to inform their insurers as they have increased the size of the property. From here one of two things can happen.

1. The insurers continue to insure for buildings and contents and you are covered.

2. The insurers insist on structural calculations before they continue to insure (I accept there is ways around this).

An assessment of the foundations will be required (if there are any, it maybe with a house of that age there is simply a corbel brick arrangement or even built up from rubble!)This in conjunction with the size of the conversion (deadweight) and the underlying ground conditions will determine if the bearing pressure has increased more than the ground is capable of bearing.

Any settlement will occur quickly, but if you have clay you may get consolidation over time.

In either case, you need to get an engineer to make an assessment and not at your own cost.

thanks for your advice everyone