Party Wall etc. Act 1996 Act 3 metre rule explained

The Party Wall act covers excavations within 3 metres of an Adjoining Owner’s property.

If the lowest point of the proposed excavation will be lower than the underside of the foundations to the party wall (or parts of their property which are within three metres of the proposed excavation).

Therefore, if the proposed excavation will exceed the depth of any existing foundations, then a party wall excavation Notice under section 6 will need to be served, by the building owner (the legal owner of the land who is instigating the building works).

In order to be valid, a ‘Three Metre’ Notice will also need to include a section drawing, showing the depth of the proposed excavations and its position relative to pre – existing property the Notice will be deemed as invalid without this information in its text.

An experienced party wall Surveyor will make a reasoned assumption about the depth of the existing foundations to a property, based on its date of construction, and other factors, for older property pre 1940 the depth would be typically 400mm to 800mm and all modern excavation tend to be 1200mm deep. So in most cases the Act applies.

In some instances, a trial pit is dug, to ascertain the existing foundations, but this may be carried out to verify design assumptions, once the party wall process is further forward.

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