A retired couple have stated they’ve spent their life financial savings in a bitter authorized row with their former neighbor over a fence put up on their shared driveway.
Graham and Katherine Bateson stated they’ve sunk $59,551 (£45k) into legal professionals’ charges since their late neighbor Wendy Leedham positioned the fence alongside their bungalow.
The couple sought an injunction to have it taken down, saying it obstructed the doorway to the drive of their property after it was put up in 2019.
Mr. and Mrs. Bateson argued that after they purchased their two-bedroom home for $39,039 (£29,500) in 1987, they had been informed it shared a drive with their neighbor.
They stated they had been informed there was a featureless boundary marked between the 2 properties which shouldn’t be constructed on.
However their neighbor obtained authorized recommendation saying she may put the fence up between the properties in Snettisham, Norfolk.
Mrs. Bateson, 73, stated: “We’d lived right here 32 years with none issues with the earlier neighbors, all of them agreed it was a shared drive.
“We purchased it as a shared drive, that’s the way it was defined to us and offered to us.
“I don’t perceive how one can have all of the checks performed legally and 30 years later it comes again and bites you on the bum.
“To have all your life savings taken away like that, when you knew you were right in the first place.”
Litigation dragged on for 3 years till November, 2021, when the case went to a mediation listening to.
The listening to dominated a brand new deed ought to be drawn up exhibiting the boundary between the 2 properties aligned with the fence, which means it may keep.
Wendy Leedham didn’t dwell to see the result.
She handed away months earlier than the listening to in Might, 2021, on the age of 74.
Ms. Leedham’s three-bed former house is now available on the market for $496,263 (£375,000) with brokers Sowerbys.
Sowerbys’ 12-page brochure makes no point out of the fence or the boundary dispute and the Batesons worry a brand new proprietor may change it.
Mrs. Bateson, a retired manufacturing unit supervisor stated: “We’re still living in fear they will put another fence up when there shouldn’t have been one in the first place.”
The Batesons say the shared drive and open boundary was later confirmed by a surveyor’s report after the mediation listening to.
Retired window cleaner Mr. Bateson, 75, took the legislation into his personal arms in September, 2022.
He stated: “I took the fence down and I bought arrested for prison harm.
“They had me locked up for 12 hours on a Sunday with no food until midnight.”
Final December, the cost was dropped as a result of the Crown Prosecution Service deemed it was not within the public curiosity to proceed.
Mr. Bateson stated by then, the couple couldn’t proceed their authorized combat as a result of they may not afford to, having already spent $59,551 (£45,000).
He stated: “We saved and worked hard. It’s all gone now.”
Each events paid their very own authorized prices.
The fence has not been rebuilt, whereas the Land Registry has rejected the revised deed as a result of it was not proud of the best way the Batesons’ signatures had been witnessed.
Sowerby’s and Mrs. Leedham’s household had been contacted for remark.
