Template · Before the work starts

The letter you send your neighbours

The cheapest thing you can do to avoid a dispute, and the one most people skip. Tell them what is coming, when, how long for, and who to ring when it goes wrong. Fill in one form and the letter comes out written.

This is a courtesy letter. It has no legal effect and it is not a party wall notice.

Read this first

This letter has no legal effect

It does not give you permission to do anything, it does not start any clock, and your neighbour cannot consent to it or object to it in a way that binds either of you. It is a good manners document, and it works because of that, not in spite of it.

It does not replace a party wall notice. If the work cuts into a shared wall, raises or underpins one, takes out a chimney breast, builds at the boundary, or digs near your neighbour’s foundations, you may have to serve a formal notice under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, and there is a minimum period before the work can start. The party wall notice checker will tell you whether yours is that kind of job, and the party wall notice templates will write the notice. That Act applies in England and Wales only. It does not extend to Scotland or Northern Ireland, where the position is a matter of common law and the title deeds.

A letter is also not planning permission and not building control. Send this one as well as those, never instead of them.

1. Who it is from, and who it is to

The neighbour’s name and address are optional. Leave them blank and the letter opens with “Dear Neighbour”, which is fine for the ones you have never met and for the house whose name you can never remember.

Your name, or both of your names The property where the work is happening Neighbour’s name, optional Neighbour’s address, optional Date on the letter

2. What the work is, and when

What is being done Plain English, two or three sentences. Your neighbour wants to know how bad it is going to be, not the specification.

Start date How long it should take Write it the way you would say it: about ten weeks, roughly three months, six to eight weeks. Working hours, Monday to Friday Working hours, Saturday Leave blank if nobody will be working on a Saturday. A quiet spell each day, optional Councils restrict the heaviest work on big sites to 9am to noon and 2pm to 5.30pm, so that the middle of the day is predictable. You can offer the same thing for free, and for anyone working from home or settling a baby it is worth more than the apology at the end of the letter.

No work on Sundays or bank holidays Most councils do not allow noisy construction on a Sunday or a bank holiday anyway. Check your own council’s permitted hours before you print any of this, because they are set locally. One part of the job may have to happen outside those hours A big pour, a crane lift, a road connection. Adds a paragraph saying so, and saying that the proper route is a prior consent application to the council beforehand rather than simply starting early. Whoever is carrying out the works applies for it, so ask your builder whether they have.

3. What they will see outside

This is the part neighbours care about most, because it is the part that turns up on their street. Tick what applies and say roughly where. If you do not know yet, say so in the box and the letter will say you will confirm nearer the time.

There will be a skip Or a grab lorry coming and going. There will be scaffolding Say if any of it sits on their side or overhangs their garden, because that is a conversation to have now rather than on the morning it goes up. There will be hoarding or temporary fencing The pavement will be affected Parking will be affected

Deliveries, optional The noisiest parts, and roughly when Being specific here is the whole trick. “It will be noisy” annoys people. “Two bad weeks, then quiet” is something they can live with. What you have asked them to do to keep it down, optional Councils ask contractors on larger sites to tell neighbours what is being done about the noise and the dust, not only how loud it will be. Leave this blank and the letter puts in a plain version of the same thing.

4. Two paragraphs you can add

I have already served a party wall notice Adds a short paragraph saying so, and pointing at the notice as the formal document rather than this letter. Only tick it if you really have served one. We would like to see a schedule of condition Adds a paragraph asking to photograph their side before anything starts. It is the only thing that settles an argument about a crack six months later, and it protects both of you.

5. Who to call if there is a problem

Name Phone number Email, optional Builder or site manager, optional Someone else to try, optional The Considerate Constructors Scheme model letter names a second person to ring “in my absence”, which is the part most homemade letters leave out. A number nobody answers on the one morning it matters is the same as no number. Their number, optional

Getting it right

Send it about two weeks before, not the night before Far enough ahead that anyone working from home or with a baby asleep can plan around it, close enough that the dates are real. If the start slips by more than a week or two, send a short second note.

Put it through every door that will hear it Not just the two either side. Anyone overlooking the back, the flats above, the house opposite that will lose the parking space. It costs a few sheets of paper and it buys a lot of patience.

Give a number that will actually be answered A mobile you carry, not the builder’s office line. The point of the letter is that the first complaint comes to you as a phone call rather than to the council as a report.

Working hours are usually set by the council Most councils publish permitted hours for noisy construction, commonly around 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 1pm on Saturday, with nothing on Sundays or bank holidays. The exact hours are local, so check your own council before you print them in a letter, and Northern Ireland councils often work to a different pattern again. The power behind them is section 60 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 in England, Wales and Scotland, and article 40 of the Pollution Control and Local Government (Northern Ireland) Order 1978. Separately from that, noise from a site can be a statutory nuisance under section 79 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 in England, Wales and Scotland, and under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act (Northern Ireland) 2011.

Say what you are doing to keep it down, not only how bad it will be The codes of construction practice councils write for larger sites ask for exactly this: the mitigation, not just the warning. Kensington and Chelsea’s code asks a contractor to tell neighbours the steps being taken on noise and vibration, and for the worst jobs to explain why a quieter method is not practicable. On a house job that is one honest paragraph: the quieter tool where there is a choice, dust kept down, the road swept, no radios. It is the difference between a warning and a plan.

A daily quiet spell is worth more than an apology The same code restricts the highest impact work to 9am to noon and 2pm to 5.30pm on weekdays, so that neighbours get a predictable break in the middle of the day. You can offer the same thing voluntarily. An hour and a half in the middle of the day with nothing loud in it is a small thing to give up and the single most useful thing you can offer somebody working from home or getting a baby to sleep.

The one job that has to happen outside the hours has a proper route If something genuinely cannot be done inside the permitted hours, a big pour or a crane lift, the lawful route is a prior consent application to the council before the work happens: section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 in England, Wales and Scotland, article 41 of the 1978 Order in Northern Ireland. Councils commonly ask for it at least 28 days ahead. Consent under section 61 also protects the site from a section 60 notice and from proceedings under section 80 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 for the noise it covers. It is the builder or whoever is carrying out the works who applies, so ask them whether they have.

A skip or scaffold on the road needs a licence Anything standing on the public highway or the pavement needs a permit from the highway authority, and so does a hoarding or a pavement closure. In England and Wales that is the Highways Act 1980, section 139 for skips and section 169 for scaffolding. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own equivalents. Your builder usually arranges it, but it is worth checking rather than assuming.

Put the number somewhere they can find it again in week seven Codes of construction practice make even the smallest sites display the contractor, the site contact, the duration and the working hours on the hoarding, for the good reason that a letter delivered in February is in the recycling by April. A card taped inside the gate, or a second copy through the door when the scaffold goes up, saves somebody standing in the road at 7.40am with nobody to ring.

Come back to them even when you cannot fix it Kensington and Chelsea gives contractors three working days to respond to a complaint and say what was done about it. That is a fair standard to hold yourself to on a house job. Half of what makes a neighbour ring the council instead of you is not the noise, it is having rung you once and heard nothing back.

Keep a copy and note the date you delivered it Not because it has any legal weight, because it has none. Because "nobody told us anything" is the first line of most complaints, and a dated copy answers it in one sentence.

What this letter is not

It is not a party wall notice. A notice under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 has to say particular things, has to be served on every adjoining owner including any leaseholder with a lease of a year or more, and has to be served one or two months before the work depending on the notice. A friendly letter does none of that, and a neighbour who replies “fine, go ahead” to a friendly letter has not consented to anything under the Act. Use the checker and the notice templates for that side of it.
It is not permission. It has nothing to do with planning permission or building control, and sending it does not make an unlawful job lawful. A neighbour who is happy about the letter can still object to the planning application, and often does.
It is not a promise you have to keep to the day. Dates move on building sites. Say so in the letter, which this one does, and send a second short note if they move a lot. What annoys people is silence, not slippage.
It does not stop a complaint. If the noise is genuinely unreasonable your neighbour can still complain to environmental health, and the council can serve a notice controlling the hours, the plant and the noise levels: section 60 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 in England, Wales and Scotland, article 40 of the Pollution Control and Local Government (Northern Ireland) Order 1978. A separate abatement notice can follow under section 80 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, or the Northern Ireland equivalent, and there are 21 days to appeal one and a fine for ignoring it. Keeping to the hours you have written down is the best protection you have, and having applied for prior consent in advance is better still.
It is not permission to set foot on their land. Nobody gets to put a scaffold foot, a ladder or a wheelbarrow on the neighbour’s side because a letter went through the door. In England and Wales the one thing that does carry a right of entry is a party wall notice that has taken effect, and even then section 8 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 wants fourteen days’ notice of the entry except in an emergency. Everywhere else it is a conversation, and it goes better held in January than on the morning the lorry arrives.

Working hours, skip permits, scaffold licences and pavement closures are all set locally, and the legislation behind them differs across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Check your own council before you print any hours or any promise about the pavement in a letter that a neighbour will keep.

This is guidance and a starting point, not legal advice. The letter is assembled in your browser, so nothing you type here about your house, your neighbour or your builder is sent anywhere.

The letter you send your neighbours

Templates are switched off at the moment

This letter has no legal effect

Getting it right

What this letter is not