Pensioner, 81, loses ‘ridiculous’ £280,000 neighbour row over ‘inches’ of land

An angry pensioner has lost an absurd £280,000 fight with her neighbour over ‘inches of dead space’ separating their homes.

Christel Naish, 81, and her neighbour, Dr Jyotibala Patel, fought a bitter seven-year court war after Ms Naish complained that Dr Patel’s garden tap and pipe were ‘trespassing’ on the tiny strip of land between their houses.

High Court judge Sir Anthony Mann slammed the argument over the tiny strip as ‘not worth arguing about’.

The dispute escalated into a costly boundary dispute, with the neighbours arguing over a few inches of dead space, barely enough for a person to squeeze into sideways between their houses in Ilford, east London.

They each laid claim to the strip, with a judge at Mayor’s and City County Court ruling in favour of Dr Patel and her husband, Vasos Vassili, last year.

But Ms Naish fought on, only to have her case thrown out this week at the High Court.

Rejecting her appeal, Sir Anthony said the disputed strip of land between the houses is ‘dead space, and one would have thought it was not worth arguing about.’

The court heard Ms Naish first moved into the semi in Chadacre Avenue as a teenager with her parents and, although she moved out, frequently returned as she worked from there in the family’s tarmac business.

She eventually moved back permanently after the death of her father in 2001, with Dr Patel and husband Vasos Vassili buying the house next door for £450,000 in 2013.

The couple’s barrister, Paul Wilmshurst, told the judge that the dispute began due to Ms Naish repeatedly complaining that a tap and pipe outside their house trespassed on her land.

They felt forced to sue their neighbour, believing they couldn’t sell their property due to ‘the blight’ on it from the unresolved row, he said.

At the county court, they claimed the tiny gap between the houses, created when the previous owners of their home built an extension on a previously much wider gap in 1983, was theirs.

They insisted that the boundary between the two properties was the flank wall of Ms Naish’s house and not the edge of her guttering hanging above, as she claimed.

After hearing the trial, Judge Hellman ruled that Dr Patel and Mr Vassili owned the gap between the houses.

But he did rule in favour of Ms Naish’s claim about damp into her conservatory, caused by the couple installing decking above the level of her damp proof course.

Although the damp problem was already in existence, the installation of the decking contributed roughly 20% to it. Ms Naish was awarded £1,226 in damages.

Ms Naish was ordered to pay 65% of her neighbour’s lawyers’ bills – £100,000 – on top of her own six-figure legal bills.

But Ms Naish continued to fight and took her case to the High Court in May, which Sir Anthony blasted as bringing ‘litigation into disrepute’ since Ms Naish no longer has any problems with the tap and pipe.

The court heard the legal costs of the appeal process itself would add more than £30,000 to the total cost of the case.

‘Hundreds of thousands of pounds about a tap and a pipe that doesn’t matter,’ Sir Anthony told Ms Naish’s lawyers during the appeal hearing.

‘You don’t care about the pipe and the tap, so why does it matter, for goodness’ sake, where the boundary lies? It seems to me to be a ridiculous piece of litigation – on both sides, no doubt.’

The judge rejected Ms Naish’s appeal and also dismissed her challenge to the decision on the damp issue, under which she was claiming extra damages.

Ms Naish’s appeal against the amount of her neighbours’ costs she must pay will be decided at a later date.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

th