The Party Wall Act covers excavations which are within 3 metres of an Adjoining Owner’s property, namely their foundations.
If the bottom of the excavation will be lower than the foundations of the adjoining owner’s foundations, then a section 6 notice will need to be served.
It should be noted that for a Three Metre notice to be valid it would need to include a section drawing, which would indicate the depth of the new excavations proposed and its position relative to the adjoining owner’s property.
Depending on what the individual property is like there can be a lot to consider when coming to the right conclusion about the depth of the foundation, an experienced Party Wall Surveyor would take this into consideration depending on what year it was built.
Party wall surveyors can make a good assumption about the depth of an adjoining owner’s foundations by taking into account the date of the property construction.
In some instances, appointing owners ask to confirm the existing foundations against the designs by digging a trial pit.
