My neighbour's building work damaged my property

Last updated: 31 July 2026

A crack has appeared, or a ceiling has moved, and the scaffolding next door is still up. This is the moment the Party Wall Act actually matters to people — so here's what it entitles you to, what it doesn't, and the things worth doing today rather than after the argument starts.

Do this first, before anything else

Whatever the legal position turns out to be, the same four things help:

• Photograph everything, dated. Wide shots of each room, then close-ups of every crack, gap or stain. Include a tape measure or a coin against the crack for scale. Don't crop anything.
• Write down when you first noticed it, and what was happening next door at the time — piling, breaking out, the day the beams went in.
• Tell your neighbour in writing. Short and civil: you've noticed damage, you believe it relates to the works, and you'd like it looked at. Keep a copy. This isn't escalation — it's the record that the problem was raised while the job was live.
• Find your schedule of condition, if one was done. That's the pre-works record of your property, and it's the single most valuable document you can have right now.

What if there's no schedule of condition?

Not fatal, and worth being clear about because it's often misrepresented: recording one is not a requirement of the Act, and its absence doesn't extinguish your rights. Your entitlement to compensation comes from the Act itself, not from having a photograph album.

What it changes is how the argument goes. Without a dated "before", the question of whether a crack is new becomes one person's recollection against another's — so anything else dated that shows the property earlier becomes useful: estate agent photos from when you bought, insurance surveys, mortgage valuations, even family photographs with a wall in the background.

What the Act entitles you to

Where work was carried out under the Act, section 7 does most of the work, and it's stronger than most people expect.

Compensation for loss or damage

The building owner "shall compensate any adjoining owner and any adjoining occupier for any loss or damage which may result to any of them by reason of any work executed in pursuance of this Act."

Two things in that sentence matter. An occupier is covered as well as an owner — so a tenant has their own entitlement, not merely the landlord. And on the face of it the test is causation: did the work cause the loss? It isn't framed as needing to prove that anyone was careless.

No unnecessary inconvenience

The building owner must not exercise their rights "in such a manner or at such time as to cause unnecessary inconvenience". Read that word carefully: the Act doesn't promise you a quiet life while next door is built. It promises that disruption beyond what the job genuinely requires isn't allowed — wrong hours, needless mess, work sequenced carelessly.

Protection while your property is open

If the work lays open any part of your land or building, the building owner must, at their own expense, put up and maintain proper hoarding, shoring, fans or temporary construction for as long as necessary. If your side is exposed to the weather or to anyone walking past, that isn't a favour you're asking for.

They must build what was agreed

Works must comply with statutory requirements and follow the plans, sections and particulars that were agreed or awarded — and no deviation from them unless agreed or determined under the Act's dispute procedure. If what's been built isn't what the award described, that's a distinct problem from the damage itself, and worth raising as one.

Related: nothing in the Act lets a building owner place special foundations under your land without your previous consent in writing.

Compensation and "making good" are two different things

People use them interchangeably and they aren't. Getting the distinction right changes what you can ask for.

Compensation is the section 7 duty above: money for loss or damage resulting from the works. Making good is a separate obligation attached to particular party structure rights — cutting into the wall, cutting away a chimney breast, and similar — which requires the building owner to make good all damage caused to the adjoining premises or their internal furnishings and decorations.

Taking the money instead of the repairs

Where the building owner is required to make good damage under the Act, you have a right to require instead that the cost of making good be determined and paid to you, rather than having the work carried out.

That's often the better option: it means your own builder, on your timetable, rather than your neighbour's contractor back in your house. But note the limit — that right is tied to the making-good duty. It isn't a general right to take cash for any damage from any kind of party wall work.

Excavation damage works differently

Worth flagging because it's the commonest damage scenario and it doesn't follow the same route. Section 6 excavation work carries no make-good duty, so the cash-instead-of-repairs right doesn't attach to it.

What you have instead is the section 7 compensation duty above, plus an express saving in the excavation section itself: nothing in it relieves the building owner "from any liability to which he would otherwise be subject for injury" to an adjoining owner or occupier. In plain terms, the Act's excavation rules don't shelter them from ordinary legal responsibility for the harm caused. If it was the digging that damaged your property, that's the framework.

How a claim actually proceeds

If surveyors were appointed, they're the route. The Act's dispute machinery covers any matter connected with work to which the Act relates and in dispute between the owners — which is where damage arguments belong once an award exists.

One thing to be sceptical about: you'll see references to a "further award", an "addendum award" or a "damage award". None of those phrases appears anywhere in the Act. Surveyors do produce documents dealing with damage, and that's ordinary practice, but if someone cites a section number for a "damage award" they're citing something that doesn't exist. What exists is the same dispute procedure that produced the first award.

And if you feel the process has stalled or your own surveyor isn't pressing the point: either owner, or either surveyor, can refer a matter to the third surveyor acting alone. You don't need your neighbour's agreement or your surveyor's blessing. That route only exists if two surveyors were appointed — with a single agreed surveyor there's no third to escalate to. See how awards and appeals work.

How much you can recover isn't fully settled

An honest caveat that most pages skip. In 2024 the Court of Appeal considered how compensation under the Act should be measured and said it was inclined to agree that ordinary damages principles apply — but expressly left the point open. So anyone telling you confidently how your loss will be calculated is ahead of the case law.

The same case drew a limit worth knowing: the building owner doesn't have to pay to put right everything that turns out to be wrong with your property. The claim is about what their work caused, not a free survey and refurbishment of pre-existing defects. Which is, again, why a dated "before" matters so much.

Is there a deadline?

The Act doesn't set one for a compensation claim, and whether a general legal time limit applies — and when it would start — isn't something the Act answers. We're not going to invent a period for you.

The practical answer is the same either way: move promptly. Evidence decays, memories blur, contractors move on, and delay is the thing most likely to weaken a good claim. The only clocks the Act itself fixes are the notice periods and the 14 days to appeal an award from the day it's served on you.

If no notice was ever served

This changes everything, and not in the way people assume. It's natural to think that a neighbour who skipped the notice has forfeited something and you can now invoke the Act against them. In fact the opposite happens: without a valid notice the Act's dispute machinery isn't engaged at all, so there's nothing to appoint a surveyor under, and an award produced anyway is void.

Your route is the ordinary courts rather than surveyors. That's slower and more expensive, which is precisely why the missing notice matters — but your claim also isn't confined by the Act's framework. Don't read "no award" as "no remedy".

When no notice was served covers the wider position, and retrospective agreements explains why it can't simply be papered over afterwards.

Where this page stops

Damage claims are the point at which general information runs out and your specific facts take over — whose work, what was served, what the award said, what the crack actually is. A party wall surveyor can usually tell you in one conversation whether you're looking at a misunderstanding or a real claim, and a solicitor takes it from there if it's the latter.

Two things to do before that conversation, both free: gather the paperwork (notice, consent or award, schedule of condition, correspondence), and take today's photographs. Everything else gets easier with those in hand.

Wider context: the Act explained end to end, who pays for the surveyors, and — if you're the one building and worried about this — the free checker tells you which notices your project needs before any of this becomes relevant.