Retired couple lose life savings in bitter row with neighbour over fence
A retired couple have said they've spent their life savings in a bitter legal row with their former neighbour over a fence put up on their shared driveway.
Graham and Katherine Bateson said they have sunk £45k into lawyers' fees since their late neighbour Wendy Leedham placed the fence alongside their bungalow.
The couple sought an injunction to have it taken down, saying it obstructed the entrance to the drive of their property after it was put up in 2019.
Mr and Mrs Bateson argued that when they bought their two-bedroom house for £29,500 in 1987, they were told it shared a drive with their neighbour.
They said they were told there was a featureless boundary marked between the two properties which should not be built on.
Graham and Katherine Bateson said they have sunk £45k into lawyers' fees since their late neighbour Wendy Leedham placed the fence alongside their bungalow.
The couple sought an injunction to have it taken down, saying it obstructed the entrance to the drive of their property after it was put up in 2019.
Mr and Mrs Bateson argued that when they bought their two-bedroom house for £29,500 in 1987, they were told it shared a drive with their neighbour.
They said they were told there was a featureless boundary marked between the two properties which should not be built on.
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FunTranscript
00:00Our next of neighbour erected a fence on our boundary which left us very little room to get a vehicle in to our property.
00:14We were harassed and bullied into submission by solicitors and whoever else, the judges and all of them.
00:26They all seemed to be protecting each other.
00:29When we bought this place in 1987 it was sold to us as having a shared drive with the neighbour.
00:40I don't understand why the solicitors could not pick up on the two broken lines either side of the drive which determines our boundary and her boundary.
00:54How they have persecuted us over this, we've fought this all the way through within the law and in the finish.
01:07Because the law wouldn't listen then we had to take the fence down just to get somebody to listen.
01:14And that is basically the whole story apart from the £45,000 that we've spent which is a lot of money.
01:23Our garage was sitting here and there was about a metre inside which was an oil people's walkway to get to the tank.
01:39Mrs Leadham went and erected her fence on the featureless boundary down there which is our boundary and we always expected it to be our boundary.
01:51And since we have found out that Mrs Leadham's boundary is the other side running alongside the gable end right up her garage and then across to that corner and then straight through.
02:04She stepped over her own boundary, walked across the shared drive and erected the fence in what was our boundary.