End-to-end Party Wall Act 1996 service for Havering — Section 1, 3 and 6 notices, schedule of condition surveys, party wall award coordination. We handle the process so your Havering build starts without neighbour disputes.
Two months before cutting into a shared wall, one month before building at the boundary or excavating within three metres of a neighbour’s foundations. Havering decides planning applications quickly — 97.9% inside eight weeks — but the party wall clock runs separately.
| Section | Work it catches | Notice period |
|---|---|---|
| Section 1 | New wall at or astride the boundary | 1 month |
| Section 2 | Cutting into or raising a shared wall | 2 months |
| Section 6(1) | Excavating within 3m, deeper than their footings | 1 month |
| Section 6(2) | Excavating within 6m, inside a 45-degree line | 1 month |
| No reply within 14 days | deemed dissent, surveyors appointed | Section 10 |
| Havering decisions inside eight weeks | 97.9% | MHCLG PS1 and PS2 |
Sources: the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, sections 1, 2, 6 and 10, read at 1 September 2026; Havering decision figures from MHCLG District Planning Application Statistics (PS1 and PS2), twelve quarters to March 2026. A fast planning decision does not shorten the notice periods: on a two-month section 2 notice the party wall timetable, not the council, is usually what sets the start date.
In Havering — 1930s semi-detached dominates Hornchurch and Upminster; post-war in Harold Hill and Romford; Victorian in older Romford centre for the most part — a party wall services package is the full measured-survey-to-submission drawing set London Borough of Havering needs in order to determine an application: existing and proposed plans, elevations and sections at 1:100 and 1:50, a location and site plan, and the supporting statements the case officer asks for.
Prepared and reviewed by the architectural technologist team at Architectural Drawings London — CIAT Affiliate, professional indemnity insured.Last reviewed 2026-08-03.
End-to-end Party Wall Act 1996 service for Havering — Section 1, 3 and 6 notices, schedule of condition surveys, party wall award coordination. We handle the process so your Havering build starts without neighbour disputes.
Housing stock in Havering: 1930s semi-detached dominates Hornchurch and Upminster; post-war in Harold Hill and Romford; Victorian in older Romford centre.
Character: Outer east London; Metropolitan Green Belt covers north of the borough; permissive residential planning; strong PD use.
We read your project against the Act and say which sections actually bite. A new wall built on or up to the boundary is section 1. Work to an existing party structure — cutting in, raising it, underpinning it — is authorised by section 2 and notified under section 3. Digging near a neighbour's foundations is section 6. Those last two get transposed constantly, in print as well as on site, so it is worth stating plainly: excavation is not section 3, and the boundary is not section 6.
Notices drafted to comply with the Act and served on every adjoining owner, with the 14-day window for their reply tracked from the date of service rather than the date of posting.
A written and photographed schedule of condition covering the neighbouring properties, taken before anything starts. It is the document that settles an argument about a crack a year later, and it protects both households equally.
Technical drawings setting the proposed works against the wall itself, the foundations under it and the structure on the far side. They are a statutory requirement, and no surveyor can move an award forward without them.
Where a neighbour dissents, we handle the appointments and the drafting: one agreed surveyor between the two households where both will wear it, otherwise a surveyor each, and then the Award itself.
Liaison runs right through the award process — method statements, temporary works, access arrangements — and stops only when the award has been signed and the site can open.
Single planning or regs submission.
Planning + building regs + structural.
Listed, conservation, complex sites.
Move the controls for an indicative figure. It anchors your budget — it is not a quote. Every project is priced after a site survey.
Build costs are separate and quoted by your contractor. See our published fees.
Set out below: each Havering postcode district we draw in, what is built there, and who validates a party wall package at that address. The money column shows England's 2026 statutory planning fees, which are a separate matter from what party wall work costs.
| Postcode | Area | Dominant stock | What it means for a party wall package |
|---|---|---|---|
| RM4 | Havering-atte-Bower | Interwar semi-detached runs through Hornchurch and Upminster; post-war housing dominates Harold Hill and much of Romford; a thin band of pre-1900 stock survives near Romford centre, though across the borough that is only 1.7% of all dwellings | RM4 straddles three authorities: Epping Forest holds most of it, then Havering, then Brentwood. None of them has any role in a party wall matter, which is a private process between owners under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, so the boundary decides the planning work and not this. |
| RM5 | Collier Row | 1930s semi-detached | Collier Row falls entirely inside RM5, so every party wall package from an RM5 address is validated by Havering Council, with no boundary question to settle first. |
| RM7 | Romford / Rush Green | Victorian terraces, 1930s semi-detached, post-war flats | An RM7 address in Romford or Rush Green goes to Havering Council, weighed against the Local Plan policies for that corner of the borough. Environment Agency mapping records no RM7 postcode units in Flood Zone 3. |
| RM11 | Hornchurch / Emerson Park | 1930s semi-detached | A RM11 address in Hornchurch / Emerson Park serves notice under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. Havering Council is not a party to it, and an award binds the two owners whether or not any application is ever made. |
| RM12 | Hornchurch / Elm Park | 1930s semi-detached | RM12 covers Hornchurch and Elm Park, and Havering Council determines the package under the Local Plan policies for that area. The stock is largely interwar semi-detached, which is where two-storey rear extensions and section 6 excavation notices tend to arrive together. |
| RM13 | Rainham / Wennington | 1930s semi-detached | RM13 takes in Rainham and Wennington, the low-lying south of the borough, and Havering Council determines the package. This is where the flood layer genuinely bites. Of the district's 659 postcode units, 164 sit in Flood Zone 3, which is 24.9%, with 32.0% in Zone 2 — so ground-floor work at an RM13 address will often need a Flood Risk Assessment submitted alongside it |
| RM14 | Upminster / Cranham | 1930s semi-detached, Edwardian villas | RM14 is Upminster and Cranham, determined by Havering Council under the Local Plan policies for the eastern edge of the borough. Plots run deep and detached houses are commoner; only 1.0% of the district's postcode units sit in Flood Zone 3. |
| RM1 | Romford Central | Victorian terraces, 1930s semi-detached, post-war flats | RM1 covers Romford Central only; Havering Council handles the party wall package. |
Plot depth, wall build-up and roof pitch differ from one Havering street to the next, and each difference changes what a party wall package can achieve at that address. Something else shapes it too: Ordnance Survey mapping puts 42.9% of the borough's 11,446 hectares under buildings and hard surfacing, against 66.0% for London as a whole. Boundary distances out here are often generous enough to keep section 6 out of the job altogether.
Havering conservation designations: fifteen areas carry designation across the borough, Rainham Village, Romford Market and Upminster among them. What designation costs you is the permitted-development shortcut. A designated address gets pushed onto the £548 householder application, decided over eight weeks, rather than the £249 prior approval route at six. Which of the fifteen affects you depends entirely on where you stand, so test your own address against the council's map rather than reasoning from the borough. Outside them, Havering is unusually accommodating on the prior-approval route. Of 674 larger householder extensions determined, 519 came back as not requiring approval and 91 were refused. That is 13.5% refused, against a London figure of 24.9%.
No blanket Article 4 over Havering: Havering Council has not withdrawn permitted development across Havering, so a party wall package outside a Havering conservation area usually keeps it. The £274 Lawful Development Certificate is still the document a RM1 owner wants on file.
The building fabric around Havering: 1930s semi-detached dominates Hornchurch and Upminster; post-war in Harold Hill and Romford; Victorian in older Romford centre. Outer east London; Metropolitan Green Belt covers north of the borough; permissive residential planning; strong PD use. A party wall package in Havering is scoped against that stock first, because it decides whether the scheme runs as permitted development, a £274 Lawful Development Certificate, or a full £548 application to Havering Council.
Sources for this Havering party wall package page: borough policies maps and conservation-area registers (2025–26), Royal Mail postcode district boundaries, the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications) (England) Regulations, the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 as amended, and the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
Straight answers to what Havering homeowners actually ask about party wall work, in roughly the order they ask them.
Start a free quote →You need notices where the work means building on or astride the boundary, which is section 1; cutting into or otherwise interfering with a party wall or party structure, notifiable under section 3; or digging close to the foundations next door, three metres or six depending how deep you go, which is section 6. Loft conversions, extensions and basement digs in Havering usually engage at least one of the three, and a two-storey rear extension on a 1930s semi often engages two at once.
A consenting neighbour costs you nothing past the notice itself. Dissent means surveyors, and their fees are yours to carry, one set per adjoining owner. Notices sit inside our Complete package at no extra charge. See our fees.
Count backwards from your start date rather than forwards from today. A section 1 line of junction notice needs a month. A section 6 excavation notice needs a month. A section 3 party structure notice needs two. Your neighbour then gets 14 days in which to consent or dissent, and dissent adds another six to eight weeks before an award is agreed. Serving early costs nothing; serving late costs a building season.
No. Notifiable work started in Havering without valid notices, or without an award where one is required, puts you in breach of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. An injunction, a damages claim and the loss of the Act's own protections all follow from that. We time service so the party wall process runs alongside the planning application rather than behind it.
Silence counts as a dissent. Where an adjoining owner in Havering lets 14 days go by without replying, the Act treats them as having dissented, and the surveyor appointment process starts: yours, plus theirs at your expense, unless both sides will accept one agreed surveyor between them. We run that process and keep it from stalling.
If your property sits on a boundary, here are the neighbouring options.
Havering grants 81.8% of householder applications, a shade under the 83.0% London manages. The split is 2,633 approvals to 585 refusals out of 3,218 decisions. What sets the borough apart is speed rather than generosity: 97.9% of those decisions came inside eight weeks, against 92.5% across the capital, so a refusal here reaches you quickly and an approval quicker still. Everything that sits behind those drawings, party wall notices included, comes from one CIAT-affiliated team. Source: MHCLG live planning statistics
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