[2023] UKUT 00196 (LC)

The area known informally as the Selborne Estate, in Camberwell south London, was developed in the early 1980s to provide an extensive area of semi-detached and terraced houses and blocks of flats. The Property (No.4 on the plan below) is a two bedroom, two storey mid-terrace house within a cul-de-sac development. The houses are of timber frame construction, clad with red brick under tile roofs. The Property has a small rear garden with a gate in the rear fence giving access to an allocated car parking space in a gated parking area behind the terrace. This access would be used for construction of the proposed extension and loft conversion.

The objector’s house (No.5 on the plan) adjoins the Property along its northern boundary and is the penultimate house in the terrace of six. It has a conservatory extension to the rear (not evident on the plan) and a third bedroom in a perpendicular first floor extension which extends over a passageway to join No.7 in the adjacent terrace. The garden fence between the Property and No.5 is 2m high.

The plan is extracted from the applicants’ submitted title plan, to which the applicants have added lines around No.3 and No.5. The line around No.5 may not correctly reflect the extent of the title, particularly the full extent of the first floor extension which, from my inspection, appeared to extend all the way over to No.7.

At ground floor level the Property comprises an entrance hall/kitchen and living room from which a door gives access to the rear garden. The proposed single storey rear extension would extend 3.0 m into the garden across the full width of the house, with a flat roof at a height of 3.0 m. Glazed doors folding/sliding doors would give access to the garden. The flat roof would have two roof lights.

At first floor level the property comprises two bedrooms and a bathroom. The proposed loft conversion would provide an additional bedroom and shower room, with under eaves storage.

On 2 and 3 February 2021 the Council issued certificates of lawfulness for each element of the proposed works.

In July 2022 Mr James Lewis BSc (Hons) MRICS FFPWS of James Lewis Chartered Surveyors, Woking was appointed by the applicants and the objector as the Agreed Surveyor to make a party wall award, including a schedule of condition of the objector’s property. The award was dated 26 September 2022 and neither party challenged the award by appealing within 14 days to the County Court.

Clause 2 of the award sets out the works the applicants may carry out and clauses 4 to 8 set out the conditions to be adhered to in doing so. More details of the indemnity and compensation provisions are covered later in this decision. Clause 11 states that the authority to carry out works under the award is conditional on those works being commenced within 12 months.