Do I need a Structural Engineer ?

kindai said:
Even if you were correct, just because theres damage doesnt mean the neighbor gets a blank cheque to do what he wants at any cost.
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No one said he was! Scroll further up the thread and read my posts on this, getting a structural engineer in is OTT IMO.

kindai said:
The neighbor also has a duty to reduce his own costs. Should he bring a successful claim against the OP (unlikely) as long as the OP goes about it correctly he would at most be responsible for the removal and reinstatement of 3 bricks. He also has to prove negligence by the OP for a successful claim.

Thats if theres even any provable damage, given the neighbor is yet to provide any evidence by the sound of it.
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Yup commented on that too, the neighbour has shown the OP photos of the damage, what he hasn't done is provided them to OP.

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
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The neighbours refusal to allow inspection would go against him if it ended up at that court stage.
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The builder has nothing to do with the neighbour - I agree re: refusing the OP to inspect the damage or indeed someone else on behalf of the OP would be bad and go against him in court but the neighbour doesn't have to agree to a builder who messed coming round and potentially just trying to propose solutions or downplay it ("ah I could just stick some filler in, it will be fine") he might believe the builder to be incompetent, he didn't contract the builder in the first place nor give any permission for them to do anything with his property, he probably wants the bricks replaced and it doesn't seem unreasonable that he'd rather someone else did it.
 
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dowie said:
The builder has nothing to do with the neighbour - I agree re: refusing the OP to inspect the damage or indeed someone else on behalf of the OP would be bad and go against him in court but the neighbour doesn't have to agree to a builder who messed coming round and potentially just trying to downplay it ("ah I could just stick some filler in, it will be fine") he might believe the builder to be incompetent, he didn't contract the builder in the first place nor give any permission for them to do anything with his property, he probably wants the bricks replaced.
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It doesn't matter, the neighbour clearly has no understanding of this and as such he should defer to an expert, it doesnt HAVE to be this one, but generally its where people start in disputes. At the moment the neighbour has come up with a completely daft solution with clearly no idea what hes on about.

As I explained but will do so again to try to help you here, the court if it should get this far would be looking for the neighbour to have avoided unnecessary expense, jumping immediately to an aggressive uninformed position is not doing that.
Refusing to allow a reasonable professional to inspect a minor issue (assuming it is still) is not reasonable. The court look for reasonableness in avoiding extra costs.
If the builder turns out to be a highly rated long term quality builder who just happened to have a bad day, by refusing to allow this person to at least inspect the work, has neighbour has acted unreasonably.
No other person is going to fix it for free, and as such the OP is going to incur costs no matter what level of structural engineer, master builder, etc etc can be asked to inspect and quote for fixing the issue.

There are no mitigating circumstances that affect the viewing of the issue by the builder, this could be by detailed photos of course, if there was it would be a reasonable rejection (such as say needing specific site access where that itself had already indicated lack of competence). Its simply reviewing a situation, at this point the builder may well go "oh no thats bad, I suggest you get an alternate person to review this". You and the neighbour and just jumping to a conclusion, and as such you would be just as unreasonable in the courts eyes as that neighbour.
If upon viewing the neighbour and or the OP were worried by the builders reaction they would likely come to the same conclusion to seek alternate view(s). If the neighbour refuses to see the builder hes making a hell of an assumption into competency based an a few holes, where the rest of the work looks very competent.

It is and remains an unreasonable action to refuse to allow the person who was contracted by the OP to inspect the issue. There is a big difference between allowing an inspection and agreeing to allow that same person to undertake the work.

Whilst the builder has no contract with the neighbour what will normally happen in a situation like this is the parties will agree to exclude the middle man and deal directly between the parties who ultimately have suffered the damage and that which caused it. Very much like in a multi car accident when the person who caused the accident will have their insurance company deal with all the claims rather than a chain of cross claims ultimately all ending up at the same point. This will typically happen either when multiple insurance companies or multiple solicitors get involved and agree who needs to actually be involved.

Its completely within the neighbours right to not allow any access, but hes starting off from an unreasonable position in doing so, and going down either logical route, insurance (who ultimately are going to want to inspect) or legal are both increasing the risk for the neighbour that its only going to delay a fix thats unlikely to end up in solution that he likes from his current starting point.

Anyway it seems the OP has abandoned so its pretty pointless to speculate as we have no idea of the actual level of damage and if or how much the neighbour is overreacting.
Because we, like everyone else cannot make any real comment on whats a reasonable position for the neighbour without seeing what it actually is that has happened.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
It doesn't matter, the neighbour clearly has no understanding of this and as such he should defer to an expert, it doesnt HAVE to be this one, but generally its where people start in disputes. At the moment the neighbour has come up with a completely daft solution with clearly no idea what hes on about.
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That isn't what I'm disputing though, you don't need a wall of text going off on some tangent about something that wasn't disagreed with in the first place, the neighbour is being OTT with his refusal to send the OP pictures and his insistence on a structural engineer.

What you're wrong about is the claimed need for the OP's builder to inspect and propose a solution! Again the neighbour didn't hire the builder, didn't give him permission to do anything and is under no obligation to allow him to downplay, propose solutions or attempt to "fix" and potentially do even more shoddy work. I don't disagree that the neighbour needs to be reasonable and is being unreasonable re: the current demand that doesn't need include that though.

That is something that could be undertaken by another builder and the neighbour might, quite reasonably, want someone else (a third party) to have a look rather than the person who caused the damage in the first place. He probably (and maybe quite rightly) thinks the builder that blasted some fixings right through his wall without even knowing how thick it was is rather sloppy!
 
dowie said:
That isn't what I'm disputing though, you don't need a wall of text going off on some tangent about something that wasn't disagreed with in the first place, the neighbour is being OTT with his refusal to send the OP pictures and his insistence on a structural engineer.

What you're wrong about is the claimed need for the OP's builder to inspect and propose a solution! Again the neighbour didn't hire the builder, didn't give him permission to do anything and is under no obligation to allow him to downplay, propose solutions or attempt to "fix" and potentially do even more shoddy work. I don't disagree that the neighbour needs to be reasonable and is being unreasonable re: the current demand that doesn't need include that though.

That is something that could be undertaken by another builder and the neighbour might, quite reasonably, want someone else (a third party) to have a look rather than the person who caused the damage in the first place. He probably (and maybe quite rightly) thinks the builder that blasted some fixings right through his wall without even knowing how thick it was is rather sloppy!
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hyperbole much, your as irrational as the neighbour there

i was just trying to get across what the normal first stage of resolution is, which it seems impossible for you to understand as ever with your rather special way of viewing things

anyway im going to stop unhiding your posts so you can have the last say as usual, i thought just for once you may be adding something useful but as ever nope, just trolling
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
hyperbole much, your as irrational as the neighbour there

i was just trying to get across what the normal first stage of resolution is, which it seems impossible for you to understand as ever with your rather special way of viewing things

anyway im going to stop unhiding your posts so you can have the last say as usual, i thought just for once you may be adding something useful but as ever nope, just trolling
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There is no hyperbole there, I pointed out a simple point to you, that the standard idea that the builder has to be given the opportunity to take a look, suggest a solution etc.. doesn't necessarily apply because the neighbour didn't hire the builder! He's under no obligation to let the builder do anything more to his property and he never gave him permission in the first place.

It really isn't that hard to follow, I'm not denying that the neighbour is being unreasonable with his requests for a structural engineer nor am I disputing that getting the builder to fix it could be a normal course of action. You're doing your usual of arguing against points that weren't made and now you're in a huff and claiming I'm back on ignore (something you seem to claim every few months yet still end up replying!).
 
I'm a Structural Engineer and I very much doubt you would need one for this minor issue, unless there is damage in the inside face of the bricks.

Don't panic and start paying for things. Plenty of advice has already been given to your. Keep alll correspondence formally in writing though should things escape.
 
Bug One said:
Nothing to do with society or culture - but being a 2nd language might explain why someone would think you screw in a nail.
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And? Not everyone knows everything, maybe they've never done DIY? Their language is irrelevant, you wouldn't hammer a nail into a brick wall, it just wouldn't work full stop.
 
Delvis said:
And? Not everyone knows everything, maybe they've never done DIY? Their language is irrelevant, you wouldn't hammer a nail into a brick wall, it just wouldn't work full stop.
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Not doing DIY or simply not understanding is common
Loads of times I have heard people say just hammer in that nail a bit, when its a screw etc
People get really confused if you use something like a hammer in fixing and then tell them its a screw lol

Its wierd though on nailing brick, one of my old houses had the skirtings nailed on, directly into hard brick. It was a 1890 house, but i think the skirting was probably 1930s or 40s type age. The nails were those sort of squared off ones and really strong, and as I say nailed directly into the brick and they really held, i think they even be referred to as masonry nails. Obviously it cased more damage so its far from great practice but it is possible.
When you think back, nails were used for practically everything, only in recent times have we transitioned more and more away from nails to using different fixings, both mechanical and chemical.
 
there are such things as masonry nails. You need to know how to use them and when they're appropriate. Most of the time I'd go for a screw in a rawl plug etc, but it is possible to nail into brick. Whether it's sensible/appropriate to do so is another matter
 
Do you need a structural engineer,,,?
I doubt it, and most of the comments in this thread appear to agree, however this , along with most other neighbour disputes could end up providing a couple of solicitors a nice little earner!
I’d be investing more of my time in talking to your neighbour with a view to closing this down as quickly as possible. Without all the details your guy probably has some legitimate complaint, I’d be more than annoyed if someone had nailed / screwed through the side of my property , more so without even asking. I suspect this is less about the damage, and more and more about not asking to use his property.

Not knowing where boundaries sit, it’s difficult to even say if the party wall act applied, looking at the overhang of the roof the wall is likely to be on your neighbours property, but again this may not be correct.

We foolishly ended up getting into a dispute with a neighbour over some potential damage our works caused or would cause during some building work, it was on a much larger scale than 3 screws but my stubbornness resulted in me have to appoint a PW surveyor to help close it down, our neighbour had lost all trust in me by this point.
We’ve never got back to a normal relationship with the neighbour, and even though I thought I was the most reasonable person in our dispute, if he ever nailed or drilled anything in to the new wall I put up I’d be demanding a structural engineer and kicking off big time - I often wish we’d been able to talk about the issue before it got out of hand - If he’ll take it, a bit of humble pie and humour may be your best course of action, good luck!
 
Hi All,
Thank you for all your advice.Please find the below email reply from my neighbour

Thanks for your email, on my previous email I asked for the report by his structural engineers who advised him that there’s is no need for structural survey. Rather than providing that he keeps asking for access.
I have clearly explained the process and why it’s important to follow as the property is let out.
We conclude that the issue wouldn’t be settled amicably and take further action necessary as per our legal rights.
If he got a good case he can defend himself in the court, if we are successful with our claim he can pay for damages, legal costs and compensate for the stress we went through in the matter.
Now we enter in to dispute and instruct structural engineers to survey and instruct the builder to carry out remedial work and claim the costs through civil court.
 
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