The Building Owner is the party wishing to carry out the building works and is desirous of excercising rights under the Act. It is the Building Owner that has the obligation to prepare and serve the notices, or have a surveyor prepare and serve the notices. Once served unless the adjoining owner consents a surveyor or surveyors will be appointed and the Building Owner will usually have to pay the reasonable costs associated with the making of an Award, and any inspections regarded as necessary.

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Building Owners can prepare and serve their own notices but great care is required and many of the 'free online' templates fail certain tests and can therefor cause delay. An invalid notice is of no merit and so we will always be pleased to review the project drawings and prepare and serve notices for a Building Owner, even if this is all that is required. Relatively small costs for peace of mind.

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When enquiring it is best to provide to us for review the architectural drawings associated with any planning application and the engineering drawings associated with structural matters. Sometimes these are coordinated and combined into 'working drawings'.

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However, we can usually give a likley outline of probable costs from the planning drawings, subject to being povided later with the more detailed drawings.

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As you probably appreciate a lot depends upon the response of the neighbour/s (known as adjoining owner/s under the Act). They have 3 options effectively once they have received notice/s and until the response is known we cannot be sure what will be required. A written consent concludes the matter but any other response requires further procedures for compliance with the Act. It is their chosen response that has implications for the time required to conclude.

 

We are always happy to review the drawings and provide a fee proposal, usually broken down to show the various potential stages and possible costs.

 

The flowchart below identifies the considerations for a Building Owner when considering the Act.
 

We offer free initial advice and a drawing consideration service for Building Owners and will provide bespoke fee proposals for each matter. We can also offer advice as to whether the works require notice to be served, sometimes also looking at alternative design ideas which sometimes enable the scheme to taken outside of the Act.

The sooner we are consulted as part of the design team the better and remember with many of the notifiable works (works to party structures) at least 2 months notice is required under the Act. At least one month for other works falling under the Act.

 

We therefore usually advise Building Owners to allow ample time to conclude matters.