Party Wall Notice: Which One, When and What to Say

There is no single party wall notice. The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 creates three, for three different kinds of work, and they do not share the same notice period.

Three notices, three triggers

Each period is set by its own subsection: section 3(2)(a) requires a party structure notice to be served at least two months before the date the work will begin, while sections 1(2), 1(5) and 6(5) each require at least one month.

One warning about published guidance. The short GOV.UK page on party walls states that you must give notice between two months and a year before starting work. That is right for a party structure notice and wrong for the other two, which need one month. The longer explanatory booklet gets it right, and so does the Act.

A notice period can be shortened only by agreement. An adjoining owner may allow work to start earlier, but is not obliged to, even where the works themselves are agreed.

What a notice must contain

The Act is prescriptive in different degrees depending on the notice.

A party structure notice must state, under section 3(1), the name and address of the building owner, the nature and particulars of the proposed work, and the date on which the work will begin. Where special foundations are proposed, it must include plans, sections and details of construction, with reasonable particulars of the loads to be carried.

An excavation notice must, under section 6(6), be accompanied by plans and sections showing the site and depth of any proposed excavation and, if a building or structure is proposed, its site. Plans are mandatory here, not optional.

A line of junction notice is the least prescriptive. Sections 1(2) and 1(5) require only that it indicates the building owner’s desire to build and describes the intended wall.

There is no prescribed form. GOV.UK states there is no official form for giving notice, and RICS states there is no prescribed format. GOV.UK recommends dating the notice and including a clear statement that it is a notice under the Act.

One technical point worth knowing: the Act does not actually say a notice must be in writing. The phrase “in writing” appears in the Act for consents, surveyor appointments and accounts, but not for notices. A written document is assumed by the service machinery in section 15, and both GOV.UK and RICS treat writing as required. In practice, serve in writing.

GOV.UK publishes ten example letters in Part 5 of its explanatory booklet, covering each notice type and the positive and negative acknowledgements, and offers them as downloadable files. Where work spans more than one section of the Act, GOV.UK says the letters may be combined into one.

Who has to be served

Section 20 defines an owner broadly. It includes a person receiving or entitled to the rents or profits of land, a person in possession other than as a mortgagee or short-term tenant, and a purchaser under a contract.

Because the definition is inclusive, one neighbouring property can have more than one owner at the same time. GOV.UK states that the adjoining property may have a freehold owner and a leasehold owner, all of whom may be an adjoining owner, and that where there is more than one it is your duty to notify all of them. The adjoining owner may also be the local authority, and the Act applies to Crown, government and local authority property.

Section 6(4) widens this further for excavation: owners of buildings or structures within the three and six metre distances are deemed to be adjoining owners, even where another owner’s land separates them from the work.

Section 15 sets out how to serve. A notice may be delivered to the person, sent by post to their usual or last-known residence or place of business in the United Kingdom, or, for a company, delivered or posted to the secretary or clerk at its registered or principal office.

If you do not know who the owner is, section 15(2) allows the notice to be addressed to “the owner” of the named premises and either delivered to a person on the premises, or, if nobody is found there, fixed to a conspicuous part of the premises. RICS makes two practical points about this route: the notice must be delivered rather than posted, and where it is fixed it should not simply be put through the letterbox.

Can a notice be served by email?

Yes, but conditionally.

Section 15(1A), inserted with effect from 6 April 2016 by the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 (Electronic Communications) Order 2016, permits service by electronic communication only if three conditions are met: the recipient has stated a willingness to receive the notice electronically, that statement has not been withdrawn, and the notice was transmitted to an electronic address the recipient specified.

There is a complication worth knowing. In Knight v Goulandris [2018] EWCA Civ 237, the Court of Appeal held that section 15 is permissive rather than an exhaustive code, so a document served by a method outside section 15 can still be validly served if it is actually received. Two caveats apply before relying on that: the document in issue was a surveyors’ award rather than a notice, and RICS still recommends serving notices by one of the methods specified in section 15.

The safe course is to obtain the recipient’s stated willingness first. GOV.UK’s example letters include wording for exactly that, inviting the adjoining owner to confirm willingness and supply an email address.

How the recipient can respond

There are three possibilities: consent, dissent, or do nothing. What silence means depends on which notice was served, and this is where most summaries go wrong.

Party structure notice. Under section 5, an owner who does not serve a notice indicating consent within fourteen days is deemed to have dissented, and a dispute is deemed to have arisen. That triggers the surveyor procedure.

Excavation notice. Section 6(7) makes materially the same provision.

Line of junction notice, wall astride the boundary. Section 1(4) works differently and deems no dispute. If the adjoining owner does not consent within fourteen days, the building owner may only build the wall wholly on their own land and at their own expense. The right to build astride the boundary is simply lost.

Line of junction notice, wall wholly on your own land. Section 1(5) contains no consent or dissent mechanism at all. Once the month has run, the work may proceed.

Consent has its own route. Section 3(3)(a) allows a building owner to exercise section 2 rights with the consent in writing of the adjoining owners and occupiers, without serving a party structure notice at all. GOV.UK adds an important caveat: consent does not relieve you of your obligations under the Act, and is only confirmation that nothing is in dispute at that time.

The counter notice

An adjoining owner served with a party structure notice may serve a counter notice under section 4, requiring works such as chimney copings, breasts, jambs, flues, piers or recesses that are reasonably required for their convenience.

Section 4(2) requires a counter notice to specify the works and be accompanied by plans, sections and particulars, and to be served within one month of the party structure notice.

Under section 4(3), the building owner must comply with it unless doing the work would be injurious to them, cause them unnecessary inconvenience, or cause unnecessary delay to the notified works.

A counter notice is itself covered by section 5, so failing to consent to one within fourteen days also produces a deemed dispute. RICS describes counter notices as rarely used in practice.

How long a notice lasts

A party structure notice ceases to have effect under section 3(2)(b) if the work has not begun within twelve months of service and is not prosecuted with due diligence. Section 6(8) is in the same terms for excavation notices. Both limbs are required, so a notice does not lapse merely because twelve months have passed if the work is underway and proceeding diligently.

Section 1 contains no lapse provision at all. GOV.UK states generally that a notice is only valid for a year, but for a line of junction notice that has no basis in section 1 itself. The twelve-month figure that does appear in section 1(6) attaches to something different: the right to place projecting footings under the adjoining land, which runs from one month after service until twelve months after service.

In practice, serving well ahead of the work is unwise for any of the three, but the express twelve-month rule sits in sections 3 and 6.

If the work changes after the notice

Section 7(5) requires works to be executed in accordance with the plans, sections and particulars agreed between the owners or determined under section 10, and provides that no deviation shall be made except as agreed or so determined.

RICS guidance distinguishes two situations. Where a change is closely related to the work described in the original notice, it may legitimately be treated as a design change, agreed between the owners or their surveyors, and may require a further award. Where the additional work is entirely different or unrelated, there may be no alternative to serving a new notice and beginning the statutory procedure afresh.

GOV.UK’s booklet does not address changed work, so this is a point on which the professional standard is the source.

If no notice is served

The Act contains no enforcement procedure for failing to serve a notice. GOV.UK states this directly, and adds that an adjoining owner may seek to stop work through a court injunction or seek other legal redress.

The Court of Appeal settled what this means in Power v Shah [2023] EWCA Civ 239. Coulson LJ held that service of the notice in advance is mandatory and fundamental to the structure of the Act, and that there is nothing in the Act permitting an adjoining owner unilaterally to trigger the surveyor procedure. Lewison LJ put it as “no party structure notice, no Act.”

It is worth being clear which way that cuts. Where no notice was served, an adjoining owner cannot appoint surveyors and obtain an award. Their remedies are the ordinary common law ones the court identified: claims in trespass, nuisance and negligence, and an injunction where appropriate.

Next steps

The party wall agreement guide covers what happens after a dispute arises and what an award decides. The guide to who pays for a party wall surveyor covers liability for fees and expenses. The Party Wall surveyor guide explains the role itself.

If you need a surveyor, you can post your Party Wall job — free for manual review, or read our other guides.