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I'm also worried that if we go with his plan we will officially have had a dispute and have to declare it if we ever came to sell, thereby potentially wiping thousands of pounds off the value of both of our properties.
I know a little, but as we always employ surveyors to do the dirty work so to speak I couldn't claim to have ever read the whole act (or to have understood it).
I think it's more the terminology of the Act rather than a blazing row kind of dispute, so while they'll be a record of an award if a future purchaser wants to check it, I can't think why it would affect the resale value, possibly if the owner wants to carry out future work? It's perfectly normal to withhold assent for works and use a surveyor to agree the process and in my opinion it's an eminently sensible thing to do if an your neighbour is ever proposing works to a party wall.
What you should be aware of is that you'll be liable for all the surveyors costs going forward.
Although it's often the case that each party appoints their own surveyor, an award can be drawn up by a single surveyor as they have to act independently in drawing up the PWA. I'd speak to your neighbour and ask if they'd consider going down this route as it will keep your costs down. Your architect should be advising you about the process in any case.
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Prole.
Right. Anyone know anything about party wall agreements?
We have given our neighbour the details of what we want to do and he asked to do it formally, so we sent him a 'Party Structure Notice' and now he wants to decline consent. This is because "This will mean we have to have a Party Wall agreement. This should make both of us feel comfortable, should any problems arise in the future."
He doesn't seem to actually be against us doing the work, he seems to be declining because he wants a surveyor involved. This all seems a bit nuts to me. Actually declining means we will need to have a Party Wall Award (an agreement seems to be for when you agree, funnily enough). I'm not averse to getting a surveyor involved if it's actually needed, but jumping straight to a dispute rather than talking about it and sorting it out like grown ups seems very odd.
I'm also worried that if we go with his plan we will officially have had a dispute and have to declare it if we ever came to sell, thereby potentially wiping thousands of pounds off the value of both of our properties.
I've done quite a lot of internet searching and can't find anything that helpful. Halp?