Latest blog posts

At the time of writing the UK has just experienced the hottest Summer Solstice on record and the hottest June day in 40 years. Those of us sat inside are no doubt struggling to concentrate let alone write an interesting blog post relating to architecture! Most of you will no doubt be questioning this post in agreement that there is no such thing ... Read more >>

The Brief Our clients had recently bought a mid-terrace 19th Century 4 bedroom 4 storey property in SW6 London. They had picked the property on the basis that is had great potential for development, highlighting their desire to re-develop the existing rear addition and explore the idea of splitting the property into 2 x 2 bedroom flats. The ... Read more >>

We have recently added a tool to our website that allows you to get an idea as to the cost of your lease extension. Around half of the phone calls we receive on this subject involve the client asking for such, so it made sense for this information to be available to the public to use. There are four inputs to the Leasehold Calculator: the ... Read more >>

With London being London, seemingly any space that can be developed is being developed. The more typical schemes are loft conversions, rear extensions and everyone’s favorite, the basement dig. Another which has become increasingly popular is the extension of one’s demise into vault spaces, which are typically located beneath ... Read more >>

Working as an Architectural Technologist for one of London’s busiest firms of Chartered Surveyors gives me the unique advantage of being surrounded by party wall specialists every day.  More importantly, it has allowed me to gain a good understanding of party wall procedures and factor them in to my design projects at an early stage. As a ... Read more >>

The leasehold valuation team here at Peter Barry recently attended the annual Leasehold Advisory conference that brings together tenants, managing agents, solicitors, valuers and all other people/bodies that have a interest in the current leasehold sector. The conference was celebrating its 15th year and whilst a lot has changed since 2002, many ... Read more >>

In the first 2 parts of this post we looked at history of subsidence and the influence of trees; in this final part we'll cover other contributory factors such as the presence of ground water and variations in climate. Sloping Sites The slope of the site may have a significant effect for a number of reasons. If the site slopes steeply ... Read more >>