44 annual report 2010 briefing of neighbours. The local authority’s obligation to hear the parties implies that it must provide the parties to the case with information about it and give them an opportunity to make a statement to the authority before it decides on the case. Of course this presupposes that a decision needs to be made on the case, but that applies to most building cases, as planning permission is required. In addition, the local authority is only required to hear the parties to the case. The question is therefore when is a neighbour a party to a building case? PARTY TO THE CASE A neighbour can only claim to be a party to a building case if the building work will expose the neighbour to actual, significant nuisance. It is difficult to say exactly how significant the nuisance must be for the neighbour to have party status. The key factor is what actual changes the intended building work will impose on the neighbour. If, for instance, the neighbour’s property has not previously been overlooked, the neighbour will probably have party status if a new build will result in the property being overlooked to a significant degree. If, however, the neighbour’s property is already overlooked to a significant degree, the neighbour will probably not have party status if a new build will result in it being overlooked slightly more. The neighbour will only be a party to the case if the new build in itself will cause (further) actual significant nuisance. DISPENSATION NOT CRUCIAL TO PARTY STATUS In practice, a building project complying with all the rules concerning distance to neighbour property lines, building height etc. will probably cause so little nuisance to the neighbours that they cannot be regarded as parties to the building case. Nonetheless, a neighbour may have party status even if the building work does not require dispensation. This was shown by a case covered in the Annual Report of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, 2007, p. 437. However, the case did not primarily concern the hearing of parties. It focused on another party right, i.e. the right to appeal against the local authority’s decision. The local authority had granted permission to build a property with holiday flats on a site which had not previously been built on. It was to be a two-storey building 8.5m high in total, which would be close to a holiday home on the neighbouring property. The owners of the holiday home appealed the decision to the County Governor’s Office, which refused to consider the case as it did not regard them as parties to the case. The County Governor’s Office commented among other