Party Wall Surveyor Hampstead

Hampstead needs two location checks before a Party Wall brief is treated as complete. First, confirm that the full address is in the London Borough of Camden. Second, check whether it is inside the mapped Hampstead Neighbourhood Plan area. A Hampstead postal or estate-agent description does not answer either question, and the adopted neighbourhood-plan map expressly excludes Church Row and Perrin’s Walk.

FindTheSurveyor is a neutral marketplace, not a surveying practice. The administrator reviews a complete request before any potential invitation or introduction. Posting does not guarantee an invitation, quote or introduction.

The 2025 plan adds Hampstead-specific basement evidence

Camden formally adopted the Hampstead Neighbourhood Plan 2025-2040 on 21 July 2025. The council’s Hampstead Neighbourhood Forum page confirms that it superseded the 2018 plan. Inside its designated area, it forms part of the development plan alongside Camden’s adopted Local Plan and the London Plan.

That status is important for a basement brief. Policy BA1 is not merely background commentary. It says basement proposals should be accompanied by a Basement Impact Assessment and should include a site-specific construction methodology, consideration of cumulative effects in the ground-movement and hydrogeological assessments, and evidence that damage to neighbouring properties would not exceed Burland Scale 1, “very slight”.

Where the BIA demonstrates that a Basement Construction Plan is necessary, Policy BA1 says that plan should include the construction methodology and daily movement and vibration monitoring during excavation, reducing to weekly once the structural box is complete. The supporting text says the plan should be at Detailed Proposals Stage, equivalent to RIBA Stage 4, and should show how permanent and temporary works support vertical and lateral loads.

These are planning requirements. A BIA, Basement Construction Plan, predicted-damage category or monitoring regime does not establish whether a notice is required under section 6. The statutory exercise still needs the horizontal distance to the adjoining building or structure, the proposed excavation level and the bottom level of the adjoining foundations.

The wider Party Wall surveyor London guide provides regional context. For this address, however, the adopted Hampstead policy and its exact mapped boundary are the operative local questions.

Camden Policy A5 still applies while its replacement is examined

Camden’s basement-development page identifies Local Plan 2017 Policy A5 as its current basement policy and requires a site-specific BIA covering drainage, flooding, groundwater conditions and structural stability. For an ordinary residential proposal, Policy A5’s scale controls are cumulative. They include:

no more than one basement storey;
no basement constructed beneath an existing basement;
no more than 50% of each garden within the property;
a total basement area below 1.5 times the host-building footprint;
a garden projection no further than 50% of the host-building depth and no further than 50% of the garden depth; and
a setback from neighbouring boundaries where the basement extends beyond the host footprint.

The council submitted its proposed replacement Local Plan on 3 October 2025, but the examination news recorded further inspector correspondence on 20 August 2026. It had not replaced the 2017 plan on this page’s review date. A draft Policy D6 or proposed modification must therefore be labelled as emerging rather than used as though adopted.

Camden’s borough-wide basement Article 4 record says all basement excavations need planning permission and dates the direction to 1 June 2017. That removes the specified permitted-development route; it does not itself trigger the Party Wall Act, serve notice or authorise access to adjoining land.

The authority-wide position is covered on the page for Party Wall surveyors for Camden properties. The page for Party Wall surveyors across North London is useful for work spanning several boroughs, but neither replaces the Hampstead plan-area check.

Conservation and Article 4 coverage are address-specific

The adopted neighbourhood plan contains all or part of four conservation areas: Hampstead, South Hill Park, Fitzjohn’s/Netherhall and Mansfield. The Hampstead Conservation Area page says its statement was adopted in October 2001 and is used to assess development in that designated area. That does not make it the correct appraisal for every property described as Hampstead.

Camden’s current heritage Article 4 directory publishes a Hampstead schedule and affected-property list excluding Frognal Way, plus a separate Frognal Way schedule and map. It also publishes separate entries for Fitzjohn’s/Netherhall, South Hill Park and other conservation areas. Record the actual address, designation and schedule rather than writing “Hampstead Article 4” as if it were one uniform control.

Heritage status can change the planning route for façades, windows, roof work, hard surfaces, boundary treatments and other specified alterations. It neither proves that a wall is a party structure nor changes the one-month and two-month statutory notice periods.

Apply the Act to the drawings, not the locality

The Party Wall surveyor guide explains the roles. A Hampstead proposal should then be separated into the Act’s actual categories:

Section 1(1): the adjoining lands must be in different ownership. At the line of junction, either no building stands or there is only a boundary wall that is neither a party fence wall nor the external wall of a building. If either owner is about to build on any part of that line, the owner proposing to build serves at least one month’s notice. If the adjoining owner does not consent to a wall astride the line, section 1 provides the alternative of building wholly on the building owner’s land and at that owner’s expense.
Sections 2 and 3: before exercising a section 2 right, the building owner ordinarily serves a notice stating the owner’s name and address, the nature and particulars of the proposed work and its proposed start date at least two months before that date. Section 3(3) excepts work done with the written consent of every adjoining owner and occupier and work done in compliance with a statutory dangerous-or-neglected-structure notice.
Section 6(1): the building owner must propose to excavate, or to excavate for and erect a building or structure, within three metres measured horizontally from part of an adjoining owner’s building or structure, and any part of the proposed excavation, building or structure within those three metres must extend lower than the bottom of the adjoining foundations.
Section 6(2): within six metres, the separate test asks whether any part of the proposed excavation, building or structure would meet a plane drawn downwards in the direction of the building owner’s excavation, building or structure at 45 degrees to the horizontal. The plane begins at the line where a horizontal plane at the level of the bottom of the adjoining foundations intersects the plane of the external face of the adjoining building’s or structure’s external wall.

Where section 6 applies, the notice is served at least one month before excavation and is accompanied by plans and sections showing the site and depth of the proposed excavation and, where a building or structure is proposed, its site. The party wall notice guide explains the notice and response routes.

Do not replace an unknown adjoining-foundation depth with “within three metres means notice”. The conjunction in section 6(1) matters. Equally, Camden’s planning use of Burland Scale 1 or a broader BIA zone of influence is not the section 6(2) plane.

Build one evidence-led Hampstead brief

Include:

the complete address, mapped planning authority and Hampstead Neighbourhood Plan result;
the relevant conservation area and any affected-property Article 4 schedule;
existing and proposed plans marking the line of junction and shared structures;
sections showing excavation depth, horizontal distances and known adjoining-foundation levels;
the BIA, audit stage, construction methodology and monitoring proposals where relevant;
details of cutting-in, raising, underpinning, demolition or rebuilding of a party structure;
notices, drawings, delivery evidence and any response already received; and
freehold and leasehold interests that may affect who receives notice.

If the adjoining foundations have not been established, state that as an evidence gap. If introductions are available and the administrator records your chosen introduction, compare the stated scope, inspections, documents, exclusions and responsibility for later stages before appointing the professional. Post your Hampstead Party Wall job.

Sources checked

The authority, plan-status, neighbourhood-plan, basement, conservation and Article 4 statements were checked against the linked Camden material on 24 August 2026. The statutory wording was checked against section 1, section 2, section 3 and section 6 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. Recheck the address, designated-area boundaries and planning status when the work is prepared.