No Notice, No Act: What the 2023 Court of Appeal Ruling Means for London Homeowners
By Site Admin, | Survey of Party Wall
No Notice, No Act: What the 2023 Court of Appeal Ruling Means for London Homeowners
| Quick Answer |
| If a building owner carries out notifiable works without first serving a party wall notice, the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 cannot be used retrospectively. The adjoining owner loses the right to appoint surveyors under the Act and must instead rely on common law remedies — claims in trespass, nuisance, or negligence — or apply urgently to court for an injunction. This was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in Power & Kyson v Shah [2023] EWCA Civ 239. |
Your neighbour has started knocking through the party wall. No letter. No notice. No surveyor. Nothing. Now you are standing in your garden looking at excavation works that should have triggered the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 — and you are wondering what on earth you can do.
Here is the thing. A 2023 Court of Appeal ruling changed the answer to that question in a significant way. And if you are a London homeowner, you need to know exactly what it means for you — before those foundations get any deeper.
This article explains the ruling in plain English, breaks down your rights as an adjoining owner, walks you through your options step by step, and gives you the real cost figures. No legal jargon. No filler. Just the facts.
What Does ‘No Notice, No Act’ Actually Mean?
The phrase ‘no notice, no Act’ sums up a clear but important legal principle. The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 is triggered when a building owner serves a formal notice on their neighbour before carrying out certain types of work. That notice gives the adjoining owner time to respond, agree, or appoint a surveyor to protect their interests.
If the building owner skips that step and just gets on with the work, the question has always been: can the adjoining owner still use the Act to resolve the dispute?
For years, many party wall surveyors operated on the basis that yes, the Act could still be invoked even without a prior notice. The 2023 Court of Appeal ruling in Power & Kyson v Shah ended that practice.
The Court ruled clearly: no notice served by the building owner means the Act cannot be invoked. The adjoining owner is left with common law remedies only.
What Happened in Power & Kyson v Shah [2023] EWCA Civ 239?
The case started with a building owner called Mr Shah, who carried out works at his end-of-terrace property in East London. His neighbours claimed the works caused damage to their property. Mr Shah maintained throughout that his works did not fall within the scope of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 — and crucially, he served no notice.
The adjoining owners appointed a party wall surveyor under Section 10 of the Act. Because Mr Shah refused to engage, that surveyor appointed one on his behalf using the default procedure. Together, the two surveyors produced a party wall award requiring Mr Shah to pay compensation and cover the surveyors’ fees.
Mr Shah still refused to pay. When the surveyors took enforcement action in the Magistrates Court, Mr Shah argued the entire award was void — because no notice had been served, the Act never applied, and the surveyors had no authority to act.
The High Court Stage
The appellants argued that a purposive interpretation of the Act should apply. The purpose of the legislation was to keep disputes out of court. Why should a building owner benefit from their own failure to serve notice? It was a logical argument. But the Court of Appeal disagreed.
What the Court of Appeal Decided
The Court confirmed that a purposive construction of legislation has limits. Just because a statute was intended to achieve a general outcome does not mean every provision must be stretched to deliver it. The language used by Parliament matters.
The Court found that serving a notice was not a technicality — it was fundamental to how the Act operates. The notice gives the adjoining owner the chance to agree or dissent. It sets the statutory timescales. It defines what the surveyors can award. Without it, the entire framework breaks down.
Result: The party wall award was void. Mr Shah owed nothing under the Act. The surveyors and the adjoining owners had no statutory remedy.
For ordinary London homeowners, this ruling raised a genuinely uncomfortable question about what protection remains when a building owner simply decides to ignore the rules.
What Changed After the Ruling — and Why It Matters in London
Before this ruling, party wall surveyors in London regularly dealt with no-notice disputes by treating the Section 10 procedure as available regardless. It was a practical, low-cost route to compensation for adjoining owners who had suffered damage.
That route is now closed. Post-Shah, if your neighbour carries out notifiable works without serving notice, you cannot appoint a surveyor and proceed to a party wall award. You are now in legal proceedings territory.
In London, this has a particularly sharp edge. The city has thousands of Victorian and Edwardian terraced properties where basement excavations, loft conversions, and rear extensions routinely trigger the Act. Many building owners — especially developers and inexperienced landlords — either do not know the Act applies or deliberately choose to ignore it.
The ruling has been described as a developer’s charter — an incentive for building owners to proceed without notice, knowing that the adjoining owner’s only recourse is expensive litigation rather than a cost-effective surveyor-led process.
With Notice vs Without Notice: How Your Rights Change
Here is the practical difference between a building owner who follows the Act and one who ignores it.
| Your Situation | Notice Served | No Notice Served |
| Your rights under the Act | Full — appoint a surveyor, have an award prepared, claim compensation | None — the Act cannot be invoked at all |
| Surveyor appointment | Yes — under Section 10, including the default procedure | Not available — any award prepared would be void |
| Compensation route | Through the party wall award — efficient and relatively low cost | Court proceedings only — slow and expensive |
| Surveyor fees — who pays? | Building owner pays all reasonable fees | You bear your own costs unless court orders otherwise |
| Stopping ongoing works | Surveyor sets conditions and timing in the award | Court injunction only — costly and carries financial risk |
| Property documentation | Schedule of Condition prepared before works start | You must gather your own evidence urgently |
| Typical timeline | Weeks to a few months for a completed award | Months to years through court proceedings |
Bottom line: Notice changes everything. Without it, you lose the entire statutory framework that was designed precisely to protect you.
What Are Your Rights If Your Neighbour Started Work Without Notice?
You still have rights. They are just harder and more expensive to enforce. Here is what the law gives you.
1. Claim in Trespass
If your neighbour’s works have physically crossed onto your property — even temporarily — that is a trespass. You do not need to prove damage. The act of unlawfully entering or encroaching on your land is the wrong itself. Trespass claims can support an injunction and a damages award.
2. Claim in Nuisance
If the works have caused damage to your property, interfered with your use and enjoyment of it, or created a continuing structural risk, you have a claim in private nuisance. This is often the strongest route in no-notice party wall situations — especially where vibration, subsidence, or structural cracking has occurred.
3. Claim in Negligence
If the building owner or their contractor failed to take reasonable care and that failure caused damage to your property, a negligence claim is available. You will need to show a duty of care existed, it was breached, and that the breach caused your loss. In most London building scenarios, this is straightforward to establish.
4. Apply for an Injunction
If works are ongoing, you can apply to court for an urgent injunction to stop them while the dispute is resolved. In serious cases — active excavation, structural interference — this needs to happen fast. Applications are usually made without the other party present initially (ex parte), which courts allow given the urgency.
Important: You will almost certainly need to give an undertaking in damages — a promise to compensate the building owner for their losses if the injunction turns out to be unjustified. If the building owner is a developer, that undertaking can represent a significant financial exposure.
How Much Does a No-Notice Dispute Cost in London?
One of the starkest consequences of the Shah ruling is the shift in cost exposure. Here is an honest comparison.
| Route | Typical London Cost | Who Pays Upfront? |
| Party wall award — notice served correctly | £1,500 – £4,000 all-in | Building owner pays all reasonable fees |
| Solicitor letter warning of proceedings | £500 – £1,500 | You |
| Court injunction application | £5,000 – £12,000+ | You — risk of paying theirs if you lose |
| Full civil litigation to judgment | £15,000 – £50,000+ | You — partial recovery at best |
| Expert structural engineer report | £1,500 – £4,000 | You (reimbursable if you win) |
Courts do have discretion to award indemnity costs — meaning the building owner pays your full legal fees — where they have deliberately and vexatiously avoided the Act. This is not guaranteed, but it is strongly arguable and a good solicitor will push for it from day one.
The reality for most London homeowners is that the cost of pursuing a no-notice dispute in court is disproportionate to the damage. That is precisely the problem the Party Wall Act was designed to avoid — and exactly why the Shah ruling remains controversial.
What Should You Do Right Now If Work Has Already Started?
Speed matters here. Every day of ongoing works without documentation weakens your position. Follow this sequence.
- Document everything immediately — photograph all visible works from your side of the boundary. Date-stamp every image, note what is happening and when. Use your phone and capture wide shots and close-ups.
- Commission a Schedule of Condition urgently — this is a written and photographic record of your property’s existing condition before any further damage occurs. Do it before more work takes place. Without it, proving which damage was caused by these specific works becomes very difficult in court.
- Write to your neighbour formally — a letter stating you believe their works are notifiable under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, requesting they serve notice immediately, and making clear you reserve all your legal rights. Keep a copy and send it tracked or by email so it is timestamped.
- Seek legal advice — a solicitor with property litigation experience should advise on whether injunctive relief is appropriate. This decision needs to be made quickly if works are progressing fast.
- Contact a RICS-accredited party wall surveyor — even though the statutory route is closed, a surveyor can assess the technical nature of the works, advise on whether notice was genuinely required, and provide expert evidence if proceedings follow.
- Preserve all correspondence — every message, email, and letter between you, your neighbour, their contractor, or any solicitor they instruct becomes evidence. Back it all up.
| Urgent: Get a Schedule of Condition First |
| If works are ongoing and you have not yet documented your property’s condition, this is your single most important step right now. |
| A Schedule of Condition creates a formal baseline record. Without it, courts and insurers will struggle to attribute damage specifically to these works. |
| Survey of Party Wall provides Schedule of Condition reports across all London boroughs — including emergency same-week visits for active no-notice situations. |
| Call us before any more work progresses: [YOUR PHONE NUMBER] |
If You Are the Building Owner: What This Ruling Means for You
This is worth saying directly, because some building owners reading this may be weighing up whether to serve notice or just proceed.
The Shah ruling does not make it safer to skip notice. What it does is remove the low-cost resolution route for your neighbour — and replace it with something far more adversarial.
A neighbour who cannot use the party wall process has only one option: court. And courts have full discretion on costs. If a judge concludes you deliberately avoided serving notice to sidestep scrutiny of your works, the costs order against you could be on an indemnity basis — meaning you pay their legal fees in full, on top of your own.
Serving notice costs far less than defending a negligence claim. Get it right at the start.
How Survey of Party Wall Helps London Homeowners in No-Notice Situations
We are a RICS-accredited party wall surveying practice based in London. We handle party wall matters across all London boroughs — from Victorian terraces in Hackney and Southwark to extensions and basement digs in Richmond and Bromley.
In no-notice situations, here is specifically what we can do for you:
- Assess whether the works your neighbour is carrying out are genuinely notifiable under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 — not all works close to a party wall require notice.
- Prepare an emergency Schedule of Condition to document your property’s condition before more damage occurs.
- Provide a written expert assessment of the works and the structural risk they present — directly useful as evidence in any legal proceedings.
- Advise on the most cost-effective route forward, including whether a direct approach to the building owner via us is likely to resolve matters without court involvement.
- Work alongside your solicitor as an expert party wall witness if proceedings are issued.
| Has your neighbour started work without serving a party wall notice? Call us for a free initial consultation. We cover all London boroughs and offer emergency Schedule of Condition visits for active disputes. Contact: WhatsApp |
Key Takeaways
| What to Remember From This Article |
| ✓ Power & Kyson v Shah [2023] EWCA Civ 239 confirmed: no notice = no Party Wall Act applies |
| ✓ The adjoining owner cannot appoint surveyors or obtain a party wall award if no notice was served |
| ✓ Common law remedies — trespass, nuisance, negligence — remain available but are far more expensive |
| ✓ An injunction can stop ongoing works but carries cost risk and must be applied for urgently |
| ✓ Getting a Schedule of Condition is the single most important immediate step for any adjoining owner |
| ✓ Courts may award indemnity costs against a building owner who deliberately ignored the Act |
| ✓ Serving a party wall notice is always cheaper than defending or pursuing litigation after the fact |
Frequently Asked Questions
What does ‘no notice, no act’ mean under the Party Wall Act?
If a building owner fails to serve the required party wall notice before carrying out notifiable works, the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 cannot be invoked retrospectively. Following Power & Kyson v Shah [2023] EWCA Civ 239, the adjoining owner has no statutory remedy — only common law claims in trespass, nuisance, or negligence.
What happens if I start building work without a party wall agreement?
If the works are notifiable and no notice was served, your neighbour can apply for an injunction to stop the works and pursue damages through the civil courts. Post the Shah ruling, they cannot use the party wall surveyor process. The dispute becomes full litigation — slower, more expensive, and more adversarial for both sides.
Can I refuse access to my property if no party wall notice was served?
Yes. Without a valid notice and a completed party wall agreement or award granting rights of access, the building owner has no automatic right to enter your property. You are entitled to withhold consent until the correct statutory process is followed.
Can I take my neighbour to court for works that have already caused damage?
Yes. You can pursue a claim in private nuisance or negligence through the civil courts. If the works caused structural damage, subsidence, or cracking, a nuisance claim is likely your strongest route. A party wall surveyor can prepare an expert technical assessment to support your claim and quantify the damage.
What is a ‘without notice’ injunction in a party wall dispute?
A ‘without notice’ — also called ex parte — injunction is a court order obtained urgently without the other party being present at the initial hearing. In active party wall disputes where excavation or structural interference is ongoing, courts will consider these applications. You will need to give an undertaking in damages and return for a full hearing shortly after.
Is it illegal to carry out party wall works without serving notice?
Not a criminal offence — but it carries serious civil consequences. The building owner faces claims in trespass, nuisance, and negligence. Courts can also award indemnity costs against a building owner who deliberately avoided the Act, meaning they cover the neighbour’s full legal fees. The financial risk of ignoring the Act almost always outweighs the cost of complying with it.
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This is Article 1 in our Party Wall Case Law Series. Next: Taylor v Jones [2024] who pays for preexisting damage?
If you are planning building work in London or dealing with a neighbour who has started work without notice, contact Survey of Party Wall for a free initial assessment.
