Templates
The letters a renovation makes you write
A handful of documents decide whether a job starts on time. Most of them are short, all of them have to say particular things, and none of them are worth paying for twice. Fill in one form and take the finished text away.
Not live yet
Templates are switched off at the moment
This section is not open to readers yet. The page will fill in on its own once it is switched on, so the link is worth keeping. In the meantime the party wall notice checker will tell you which notices your job needs and how long before the work they have to be served, and the tools page has the rest of what is live.
What these are
Each template is a form and a document. You answer the questions once, in plain English, and the page writes the document out in full with the statutory wording in the right places and the dates worked out. Copy it into a letter or an email, or download it as a text file and print it.
- Nothing is sent anywhere. The document is assembled in your browser. No name, address or date reaches us, and there is nothing to sign up for.
- The dates are calculated. Where a document has a statutory notice period, the page works out the earliest date the work can lawfully start and tells you if the date you have in mind is too soon.
- Keep a copy of what you served and when. Save the file, note the date it went out and how, and keep any acknowledgement. Nearly every argument later is about what was served and on what day.
Available now
Party wall notices
The three notices a homeowner can have to serve, line of junction, party structure and adjacent excavation, plus the reply the neighbour sends back. Pick the ones the job needs, fill in one form, and each comes out as a finished letter with the earliest lawful start date worked out from the date on the notice.
Letter to the neighbours
The cheapest thing you will ever do to avoid a dispute. Dates, working hours, where the skip and the scaffold go, the noisy weeks, and a number to ring when something is wrong. It is not a party wall notice and does not replace one, which the letter says.
Comment on a planning application
Councils weigh some grounds and disregard others, and most letters waste themselves on the ones that are disregarded. Tick the grounds that actually count, from overlooking to a named local plan policy, and see plainly which common objections carry no weight at all.
Cancel a contract in the cooling-off period
A contract signed at your kitchen table can usually be cancelled within fourteen days, and if they never told you that in writing the window can run for over a year. The page works out your deadline, and where the right does not apply it says so instead of writing a letter that claims it.
Defective work: letter to your builder
List what is wrong, room by room, and require it to be put right at their cost under section 55. Sets a date for a reply and a date for the work, reserves your position, and carries an escalation paragraph for their complaints procedure or trade body.
Retention release
The money held back, asked for properly. Works out the retention and the date the defects period ends, and if that date has not arrived it asks them to confirm the release rather than demanding payment early.
More will be added here as they are written. If there is a letter you keep having to write, it is worth telling us about.
What a template does not do
These are starting points, not legal advice, and a template cannot look at your house. It does not know that the wall in question is not a party wall at all, that your neighbour is a leaseholder and the freeholder has to be served too, or that the drawings say something different from the form. Anything that matters, and a party wall notice on a job with money in it matters, should be checked by a party wall surveyor before it goes out. A notice that is wrong is worse than no notice: it can be challenged months later, and the work stops while it is sorted out.
England and Wales only. The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 does not apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland, where the position is a matter of common law and the title deeds. Serving a notice is not planning permission and is not building control, and it does not replace either of them.