How much notice do I need to give to remove a chimney breast?

Two months. Chimney breast removal is party structure work under section 2, so it needs a party structure notice served at least two months before work begins. Your neighbour then has 14 days to respond, and silence counts as dissent, which starts the surveyor process.

My neighbour removed their chimney breast — what are my rights?

You were entitled to a party structure notice two months beforehand. The work also carries a duty to make good all damage caused to your premises and to your internal furnishings and decorations, and the building owner must compensate you for loss or damage resulting from work done under the Act. If no notice was served, the Act's surveyor process is not available to either of you and the route is the ordinary courts.

Does my neighbour have to support my chimney breast if they remove theirs?

The Act does not say so. The only express condition it attaches to the right to cut away a projecting chimney breast is the duty to make good all damage caused. What structural support your side actually needs is an engineering question for the appointed surveyors and a structural engineer, not something the Act answers — which is a strong reason to dissent and have a surveyor involved rather than rely on assurances.

Do I need a party wall agreement to remove a chimney breast?

Q: Do I need a party wall agreement to remove a chimney breast?

Usually yes, if the chimney breast is on a wall you share with a neighbour. The Act gives a right to cut away a projecting chimney breast, jamb or flue from a party wall, and exercising it needs a party structure notice served at least two months before you start. A chimney breast on an internal wall inside a detached house, with nothing shared, generally falls outside the Act.

Last updated: 31 July 2026

Usually yes — and it catches people out, because removing a chimney breast feels like an internal job. The breast is internal, but the wall it projects from is very often shared with next door, and that's what brings the Act in. Here's when it applies, what your neighbour is owed, and the one question the Act pointedly doesn't answer.

Why chimney breasts are almost always notifiable

The Act gives a building owner an express right to cut away from a party wall any footing or any projecting chimney breast, jamb or flue, or other projection. That right exists precisely because the job needs it — and rights under the Act come with a notice attached.

The reason it applies so often is architectural rather than legal. In a terrace or semi, the chimney stack sits on the party wall, and the breast projects into your room from that shared wall. So even though everything you touch is inside your house, you're working on a party structure.

Notice period: two months, using a party structure notice. Your neighbour then has 14 days to reply, and on a section 2 notice silence counts as dissent (section 5).

When it isn't notifiable

Two situations where the answer can genuinely be no:

A detached house with nothing built at the boundary. Section 2 only applies where the lands of different owners adjoin and, at the boundary, are built on. A chimney breast on a purely internal wall of a detached house isn't on a party structure at all.
A breast on a genuinely internal wall — a spine wall inside your own house that doesn't separate your building from anyone else's, and doesn't stand on both owners' land.

The second one needs care, because "internal" is about the wall's legal character, not which side of your front door it's on. If you're not certain which wall the breast projects from, that's the question to settle before anything else — what counts as a party wall sets out the test, and where it's genuinely unclear the honest answer is to treat it as notifiable and confirm.

Removing the breast but keeping the stack

Very common, and it doesn't change the notice position. If you're cutting away part of a projecting breast or flue from a party wall, the right you're exercising is the same one, and the same notice is owed. Whether you retain the stack above is a structural decision, not a party wall one.

It's worth noting that the Act also gives a right to cut into a party structure for any purpose — and that phrase is doing real work. The reason for the cut is legally irrelevant, so "we're only forming a small pocket" or "it's only for a bracket" doesn't take a job outside the Act. There's no size or extent below which cutting into a party structure stops counting; the Act sets no such threshold.

What your neighbour is owed

More than just the letter. The right to cut away a projecting chimney breast is exercisable subject to making good all damage occasioned by the work to the adjoining premises — and expressly to their internal furnishings and decorations too. That's unusually specific, and it's there because this is exactly the kind of job that cracks plaster and marks wallpaper on the other side.

Separately, the building owner must compensate the adjoining owner and any occupier for loss or damage resulting from the work. And where a make-good duty applies, the neighbour can require the cost to be paid to them instead of the work being done — their own builder rather than yours back in their house. See what to do if the work causes damage.

Get a schedule of condition — this job especially

Not a requirement of the Act, and universally sensible here. Removing a breast means hammering and vibration against a wall shared with someone's living room, and hairline cracks in old plaster are the single most argued-about outcome.

A dated written and photographic record of your neighbour's rooms before you start turns a year-long argument into a five-minute comparison. If they dissent, the surveyors will normally do one as part of the award. If they consent, no surveyors are appointed — so nobody will do it unless you suggest it, and agreed photographs cost nothing.

The support question the Act doesn't answer

This is where most pages overreach, so we'll be precise. It's often said that if you remove your chimney breast you must support your neighbour's, or their stack. The Act doesn't say that.

The only express condition attached to the right to cut away a projecting chimney breast is the duty to make good all damage. There's no separate statutory obligation in the Act to underpin, support or rebuild the neighbour's breast, flues or stack, and we're not going to invent one.

What is true is that removing part of a structure can affect what's left of it, and that consequences on your neighbour's side are their problem to raise and potentially your problem to pay for under the duties above. Whether a particular job needs propping, brackets or rebuilding is an engineering question — one for a structural engineer, and for the appointed surveyors to reflect in the award. It isn't a question the Party Wall Act resolves, and anyone quoting you a rule about brackets is quoting practice, not statute.

If it's your neighbour removing theirs

You should have had a party structure notice two months before work started. If one arrived, you have the usual three options — consent, dissent and appoint your own surveyor, or dissent and share an agreed surveyor — and in the standard case your neighbour pays your surveyor's reasonable fees. Dissenting doesn't veto the work, but it does mean the method and protections get written down, and your property's condition recorded first.

Given the Act's silence on support, this is a job where dissenting is often the right call rather than a hostile one. A surveyor looking at both sides is exactly what's missing otherwise. What dissent actually does walks through it.

If no notice arrived at all

Document first: dated photographs of your rooms on the shared wall, inside and out, before anything else. Then raise it in writing.

Be aware of the trap, because it's counter-intuitive: where no valid notice was served, the Act's surveyor process isn't available to you either. There's nothing for a surveyor to be appointed under, and an award produced anyway is void. Your route is the ordinary courts rather than surveyors — see when no notice was served.

Planning, Building Regs and party wall are three different things

Removing a chimney breast usually needs Building Regulations approval, because you're altering structure. That is an entirely separate system from the Act.

Building Control signing off your beam or brackets says nothing about whether your neighbour was notified, and a party wall award grants no building control approval. Clearing one does nothing for the other. If the property is listed or in a conservation area, that's a third system again.

What it's likely to cost

The party wall part, not the building work. Serving the notice yourself is free, and if your neighbour consents that's usually the end of it. If they dissent, surveyors are appointed and you're generally paying for both sides — what a party wall agreement costs has the figures by project, and remember fees are per neighbour, so a mid-terrace breast on a shared wall with attached neighbours either side can mean two of everything.

One planning note: if a neighbour dissents, the Act sets no deadline for producing an award. Build your programme around the two-month notice period, which is certain, and treat the award stage as the uncertain part — which is the strongest argument for serving early and making consent easy.

Doing the breast as part of a bigger job? A loft conversion or knock-through can stack notices on top of this one — loft conversions and extensions cover the combinations, and the free checker names every notice your actual project needs in about 90 seconds.