Neighbour built over party line

starbaby2003

Hi All
We bought a semi d a few years ago with the idea we would extend. Our engineer had pointed out the neighbours went over the party wall. We brought this up with our solicitor who said they would have to let us build into it. We didn’t do anything further as didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot.

Our problem now is we are getting our plans drawn up and our architect says the pitch on their roof is not steep enough. He said there are new tiles on the market which you can use but that would definitely not have been available when the neighbours extended. He said we may be opening a can of worms with a shared party wall that very well may leak.
We have other options I.e build our own wall but this will increase our costs.

Has anyone gone through this ? Haven’t approached the neighbours yet but they are quite amiable so I *think* they won’t have issues using the wall.
My main concerns are
If we drill into the party wall there could be a lot of rain trapped that comes free - who would be responsible?
How do we agree the upkeep ?

Thanks !

Gumbo

What has the pitch of their roof got to do with yours?
Is there a parapet wall between you guys?

Can you post a picture for clarity?

starbaby2003

kceire wrote: »

What has the pitch of their roof got to do with yours?
Is there a parapet wall between you guys?

Can you post a picture for clarity?

These are odd houses. Two story in the front. Single story at the back.
They went up two stories, nearly every house has. For what ever reason when they built out they didn’t use the minimum recommended slant.
At the moment nothing is on our side.

starbaby2003

Pic didn’t load. It’s saying it’s exceeded limit. Will try and reduce the size

starbaby2003

Pic