No office appointments. Notices served within 24 hours. One fixed price to your Award, with no hourly rates for any of that work. Party Wall Online is the first and only party wall service in England & Wales with an MRICS Principal Surveyor overseeing every case, managed digitally from notice to Award, with a site inspection carried out when required.
Planning an extension, loft conversion, or basement excavation? The Party Wall Act 1996 makes serving notices a legal requirement. We handle everything: quickly, transparently, and at a fixed price.
£25
If your neighbour consents
Per notice served
from £695
Our fee if they object
£895 all-in with a shared surveyor, usually the cheaper route
24hrs
Notices served within
of your completed form
~2 wks
Dissent to Award
With a shared surveyor
Notice turnaround is subject to all required information being provided at the time of instruction.
MRICS Oversight
Principal Surveyor reviews every case
Fixed-Price Quote
Agreed before you instruct
24-Hour Notice Service
Served within 24 hours of your form
PI Insured
Professional indemnity cover
Digital-First Service
Most works managed online
Data Protected
ICO registered
If you're planning building work, there's a good chance the Party Wall Act applies. Here are the most common scenarios we deal with.
Building close to or on the party wall? We serve the correct notices and manage the full process.
Work to the party wall above ceiling level requires a Section 2 notice. We handle it.
Digging within 3 to 6 metres of a neighbouring property triggers a Section 6 notice.
A modern build on the boundary of a period property. Section 1 and Section 6 typically both apply.
Missed serving a notice? Our retrospective service gets you back on the right side of the law.
Your neighbour is building? You have rights under the Act and your neighbour pays our fees.
Our process covers every step of the Party Wall Act from start to finish, with clear updates at every stage.
Tell us about your project: property type, works planned, and your neighbour situation. We respond instantly with a fixed fee.
We prepare and serve the legally required notices by Recorded Delivery post within 24 hours of instruction.
Your neighbours have 14 days to respond. We contact them proactively, answer their questions, and aim for an Agreed Surveyor outcome.
Where access is granted and one is needed, a trained inspector visits your neighbour's property to photograph and document its current condition, protecting both parties before works begin.
We prepare the formal Party Wall Award document, which sets out the permitted works, working hours, and protection for both parties.
Once the Award is served, your builder can start. We remain available throughout the build for any queries.
The questions everyone asks
The four scenarios homeowners lose sleep over, and what the Party Wall Act actually does about each one.
The one everyone gets wrong
No. A neighbour who does not consent is not refusing you permission, because it was never theirs to give. Not consenting simply means they have the right to have a surveyor appointed to look after their interests. A Party Wall Award is then drawn up setting out how the works proceed, and the works go ahead. Your neighbour cannot veto your project under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, and the process exists to get you building, not to stop you.
After 14 days of silence, the Act treats them as having dissented. A dispute is deemed to have arisen and surveyors must be appointed. We escalate straight to the Award route and appoint on their behalf if they still do not engage. A neighbour who never replies adds about a fortnight, and that is all. They cannot stall you indefinitely.
Every party wall surveyor is bound by the same duty of impartiality under s.10 of the Act, regardless of who appointed them. If your neighbour's surveyor is unreasonable, the two surveyors resolve it. If they can't, a Third Surveyor decides. That's rare, and the Third Surveyor's cost is factored into your quote's escalation clause upfront.
The adjoining owner's surveyor's fee has to be reasonable to be recoverable. If a neighbour's surveyor comes in with an inflated quote, we challenge it. If it can't be agreed, the Third Surveyor determines what's reasonable, and the excess isn't payable. You have the right to challenge any fee you consider unreasonable, and we do that on your behalf before anything is agreed.
This is exactly what the Schedule of Condition prevents. Before works start, we photograph the neighbour's property in detail. If a damage claim comes in later, it's checked against that record. Real damage is fixed under the Award's compensation clause. Bogus claims (the ones every homeowner worries about) don't survive first contact with a photographic record from the day before works began.
Live from our own cases
Not an industry estimate, and not our best guess. These are the real outcomes of every notice we have served and had a response to, updated automatically.
48%
Simply consent
They sign the notice and the matter is closed. No Award, no surveyor, nothing more to pay beyond the notice fee.
29%
Object, then share one surveyor
They want a surveyor but are happy for us to act impartially for both sides. This is the quicker and cheaper of the two dissent routes.
18%
Object and appoint their own
Two surveyors agree the Award between them. You also pay their surveyor's reasonable fee, which we scrutinise on your behalf.
5%
Other outcome
Neighbours who never replied, and cases where the route was still being settled. Silence counts as an objection after 14 days, and we handle it from there.
Based on adjoining owners who have responded to notices we have served. Notices still inside the 14-day response window are not counted. Figures update automatically as cases resolve, so they move over time.
The three ways homeowners handle the Party Wall Act, and where each one lets you down.
Pay £25 per neighbourto have your notice served. If your neighbour consents, that's the end of it. Only if they dissent do you pay one fixed total, shown up front.
Your notice is drafted and served within 24 hours. If your neighbour consents, the job is done and in most cases you pay nothing more. Most neighbours consent.
If neighbour consents
£25
That's the end of it.
Step 2, Only if your neighbour dissents
Most neighbours consent. When they do, your case is complete and in most cases you pay nothing more.
Get a QuoteA single impartial surveyor produces the Party Wall Award. +£545 per additional dissenting neighbour.
Get a QuoteTheir right under the Act. You also pay their surveyor's fee (typically £700–£1,200), so it usually costs more overall.
Get a QuoteOptional Add-ons
Every dissent price already includes that neighbour's £25 notice fee. Most customers pay just £25 per neighbour, because most neighbours consent.
Our Fixed-Fee & Speed Guarantee
The fee in your quote covers everything up to and including your Party Wall Award. It does not go up because the case was harder than we expected, because your neighbour was difficult, or because we spent more hours on it than we planned. That risk is ours, and we price it in. Your notices are served within 24 hours of your instruction form being complete, subject to all required information being provided at the time of instruction, and most Awards are agreed within a fortnight of a neighbour dissenting.
Three things sit outside the fixed fee, and we would rather you knew now: a Schedule of Condition if one is requested, rare pre-Award escalations such as a Third Surveyor referral or a court appeal, and anything that comes up after the Award, such as damage claims or variations. We publish the hourly rates for all of it, and we email you what the work is and what it will cost before it starts. Nothing outside your fixed price is ever charged without your agreement.
Professional Accreditations & Standards
MRICS Principal Surveyor
Every case overseen before the Award is delivered
RICS Qualified
Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
Professional Indemnity
Full PI insurance on every instruction
ICO Registered
Data protection & GDPR compliant
Fixed-Price Guarantee
Fixed to your Award, agreed before you instruct
Formal Complaints Process
Independent complaints and redress process
Tell us about your project and we'll come back to you with a fixed quote instantly. No commitment required.
Mason
Online, replies instantly
AI assistant · Not legal advice