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  • A couple of cracks have appeared in the wall we share with our neighbours who have had a recent loft conversion.

    They look like settlement cracks but just wondering what I might be best placed to do here.

  • You should have had a party wall agreement - you know that now though right.

    Did your neighbour notify you under the act?

    There's no penalty for not getting a party wall agreement so in theory it's straight to an injunction if they didn't consult you.

    However, your neighbour has a duty of care under common law to put right the damage.

    Courts take a pretty dim view of people who go ahead with work without serving notice then damage a neighbouring property. There's a precedent case (Roadrunner Properties Limited v John Dean) where the judge was determined that the building owner who did the work wouldn't benefit from not serving notice, so decided that the burden should be on the them to disprove a link between the damage and the work instead of the other way round (which would be the normal position at common law).

    All that said - talk to your neighbour, explain what's happened, ask them to pay for it being inspected and made good. Neighbourly relations are important. But if they refuse to play ball that stuff is good to know.

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