We live in the lower ground flat of a six storey building, and are building an 'infill' extension, to take up part of the garden. We will take out a section of the main rear supporting wall, and an inner wall which supports the staircases above.
We have a very good structural engineer, who has designed the solution for the structural support of these walls.
Clearly we need to send party wall notices to our neighbours to the side and immediately above. However, I've had conflicting advice from two different party wall surveyors on whether we need to send notices to the owners of the three flats higher than the one immediately above me.
One says that since the main interested party is the freeholder, from which we will obviously need to obtain a licence to alter, the only flat above that I share a "party structure" with is the one immediately above. Another surveyor says that he sends notices to all flats above, to be on the safe side. My concern is that I have no idea where the owner of the top floor flat actually is (lives in the Bahamas, or something, I think), and under the act, if you don't receive consent within two weeks, there is an automatic assumption that you are in dispute - which could get complicated!
Does anybody know the answer to this?
Thanks SO much!