The official party wall notice templates, explained
Last updated: 30 July 2026
The templates themselves are free — the government publishes example letters for every notice type. What people actually pay for is knowing which letters their project needs and completing them without an invalidating mistake. Here's each one, explained.
The four notice templates
| Official letter | When it applies | Notice period |
|---|---|---|
| Letter 1 — party structure notice (section 2) | Work on a shared wall, or a floor/ceiling between flats: steel beams, raising, cutting in, removing a chimney breast | 2 months |
| Letter 4 — line of junction, astride (section 1(2)) | A new wall built half on each side of the boundary — needs your neighbour's written consent | 1 month |
| Letter 6 — line of junction, own land (section 1(5)) | A new wall up to the boundary but wholly on your own land | 1 month |
| Letter 8 — excavation notice (section 6) | Digging within 3m of a neighbouring building and deeper than its foundations — or within 6m on a 45° line. Must include plans and sections | 1 month |
Everything is free from the government's publication Preventing and resolving disputes in relation to party walls, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. If the words in that table need translating — party structure, line of junction, party fence wall — start with what a party wall actually is.
The reply letters your neighbour uses
Ten letters are published, and only four of them are notices. The other six are the replies — the forms your neighbour uses to consent or dissent — and they pair up with the notice they answer:
- Letters 2 and 3 — the two replies to a party structure notice (Letter 1). One consents; the other dissents.
- Letters 5 and 7 — the replies to the two line of junction notices (Letters 4 and 6).
- Letters 9 and 10 — the two replies to an excavation notice (Letter 8).
Enclose the right reply letter with your notice. It costs nothing and it measurably helps: a neighbour who can answer by signing a form says yes far more readily than one handed a blank page and left to compose a legal response.
It also protects you, because on a party structure notice (Letter 1) or an excavation notice (Letter 8), silence isn't neutral — after 14 days with no reply the Act treats your neighbour as having dissented, and the surveyor process starts whether either of you wanted it or not. A new wall built wholly on your own land works differently: there's no automatic deemed dissent, and you may simply start one month after serving.
What file format are the templates in?
The government publishes them as .ODT files — OpenDocument Text. There is no official Word or PDF version, which surprises people looking for a "party wall notice template Word document".
It's less of a problem than it looks: .ODT opens directly in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice and Pages. Open it, fill it in, and save or export as whatever you like — the format carries no legal weight. What matters is what the completed notice says and that it's properly served, not the file it started life as.
Notice template or agreement template — which do you need?
A frequent and expensive confusion. A notice can be templated. An award cannot.
The notice is the letter you send before work starts, and that's what all ten official letters are for. The party wall award is a different document entirely: it only exists if your neighbour dissents, it's written by the appointed surveyors rather than by you, and it settles the scope, timing and manner of the works. There is no official template for one, and the Act doesn't say an award has to take any particular form — so anyone selling you an "award template" is selling something the Act doesn't recognise as a step you can take yourself.
Same for the phrase "party wall agreement": in everyday use it means either a neighbour's written consent to your notice, or the award that follows a dissent. Neither is a form you download and sign.
How do you serve a completed letter?
Three methods count, and one of them has a condition people miss:
- In person — hand it over.
- By post — to their usual or last-known address.
- By email — only if the recipient has already agreed to accept service that way and given you an address for it. Emailing a notice to a neighbour who never agreed to it is one of the classic invalidating mistakes.
If you don't know who the owner is — an empty property, an absent landlord — the notice can be addressed to "The Owner" and delivered to someone on the premises or fixed somewhere conspicuous on it. Keep proof of whatever you do; the date of service is what starts the clock. The full line-by-line checklist is in how to write your own party wall notice.
Which letters does my project need?
Most projects need more than one, and the combination follows the work rather than the building type:
| Project | Usual letters | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Loft conversion | Letter 1 | Beams bearing into the shared wall is section 2 work |
| Extension | Letter 8 + Letter 6 (or 4), sometimes Letter 1 | The dig, the new wall at the boundary, and any tie-in to the shared wall |
| Basement | Letter 8 always, often Letter 1 | Excavation plus underpinning of the party structure — get a surveyor involved from day one |
| Chimney breast removal | Letter 1 | Cutting away part of the party structure |
| New boundary wall | Letter 4 (astride) or Letter 6 (own land) | Astride the line needs written consent, not just notice |
Serving one letter when the job needed three doesn't just leave a gap — it restarts the clock on the notices you missed, which is how a two-month delay becomes four.
Where DIY notices go wrong
A template can't stop the mistakes that invalidate notices. The common ones:
- The wrong letter, or too few of them. An extension often needs Letter 8 and Letter 6 — and sometimes Letter 1 too. Serving one when you need three restarts the clock.
- Not serving every owner. Both halves of a couple; the leaseholder and the freeholder of a flat. Missing one is a classic fatal defect — the flats and leasehold rules set out who counts.
- A start date inside the notice period — 2 months for section 2, 1 month for the others.
- An excavation notice without drawings. Letter 8 is not valid without plans and sections showing where and how deep you'll dig.
- Vague works descriptions, missing signatures, undated letters.
Your three routes
| Route | Cost | Best when |
|---|---|---|
| DIY from the gov.uk templates | Free | You're confident which sections apply and happy completing the letters by hand |
| Our checker + notice pack | Free check · £39 pack | The checker works out which notices you need; the pack delivers them pre-filled with your neighbours' reply forms, one print-and-post file per owner |
| A surveyor drafts and serves | £65–£150 +VAT per neighbour | Complex works, or you want a professional handling it end to end — for basements, involve one from day one |
Note that the surveyor route is priced per neighbour, so a mid-terrace with attached neighbours either side costs twice what the table suggests. That's separate from the surveyor fees that arrive later if anyone dissents — who pays for a party wall surveyor covers that half of the bill.
Not sure which letters your project needs? That's exactly what the free 90-second check answers. And when you're ready to fill one in, how to write your own notice walks the validity checklist line by line.
Arrived here because one of these letters landed on your mat, rather than because you're sending one? You want the other side of the process: what a party wall notice means and your three options.