Neighbour row costs pensioners their entire life savings after argument over fence

A couple have lost their entire life savings after they bickered with their neighbours over a fence.

Graham and Katherine Bateson, from Snettisham in Norfolk, have poured £45,000 into lawyers’ fees to challenge a fence erected by their neighbour Wendy Leedham in 2019.

Leedham, who passed away in 2021, obtained legal advice which said she could put the fence up prior to her death.

The Batesons have since sought an injunction to have it taken down, arguing that it blocked the entrance to the drive of their home.

When the couple bought the two-bedroom property on Brent Avenue, near King’s Lynn, for £29,500 in 1987, they were informed that it shared a drive with the next-door neighbour.

They argue they were told that a featureless boundary existed between the two homes, and claim they were explicitly told it should not be built on.

After three years of litigation, a meditation hearing ruled that it could stay put.

A deed map was drawn up which showed that the boundary between the two homes was aligned with the fence.

MORE NEIGHBOUR ROWS:

Neighbours wage WAR over wildflowers as eco firm boss RIPS UP entire flowerbedNeighbours left raging after ‘prison wall’ that blocks out sunlight built by house next door‘Neighbour from hell’ banned from accessing own house after complaints from next door

“We’d lived here 32 years without any problems with the previous neighbours, they all agreed it was a shared drive,” said Katherine, a 73-year-old retired factory supervisor, told the Eastern Daily Press.

“We bought it as a shared drive, that’s how it was explained to us and sold to us.

“I don’t understand how you can have all the checks done legally and 30 years later it comes back 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.”

Leedham’s family have fought to keep up the fence outside the property – which is now on the market for £375,000 with agents Sowerbys.

The company says: “This chalet bungalow, surprisingly spacious, occupies a serene spot at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac,” though have not mentioned the fence nor the boundary dispute.

The fence was removed by Graham Bateson in 2022, after he grew tired of the situation and decided to take matters into his own hands.

He subsequently was arrested for criminal damage and had to spend 12 hours in a cell.

The charge was later dropped after the Crown Prosecution Service determined that it was not in the public interest to proceed.

It has not been re-erected, though Katherine said: “We’re still living in fear they will put another fence up when there shouldn’t have been one in the first place.”

They have now given up their legal battle, staying they could no longer afford to having used their entire life savings to fund it.

“We saved and worked hard,” Graham said. “It’s all gone now.”