Retired couple lose £45k life savings in court battle with neighbour over fence on shared driveway

Video (click to play above) shows how a fence had blocked the entrance to Graham and Katherine Bateson’s drive, which they say has ended up costing them £45,000 in legal fees.

Speaking in the video, 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 by late neighbour Wendy Leedham.

Shared drive ‘not to be built on’

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 - and they have never had a problem until recently. They said they were told there was a featureless boundary marked between the two properties which should not be built on.

But their neighbour obtained legal advice saying she could put the fence up between the properties in Snettisham, Norfolk.

Life savings gone

Mrs Bateson, 73, said: "We'd lived here 32 years without any problems with the previous neighbours, they all agreed it was a shared drive. 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."

Mediation hearing

Litigation dragged on for three years until November, 2021, when the case went to a mediation hearing.

The hearing ruled a new deed should be drawn up showing the boundary between the two properties aligned with the fence, meaning it could stay. But the shared drive and open boundary was later confirmed by a surveyor's report after the mediation hearing, the Bateson’s say.

Arrested for criminal damage

Retired window cleaner Mr Bateson, 75, took the law into his own hands in September, 2022. He said: "I took the fence down and I got arrested for criminal damage. They had me locked up for 12 hours on a Sunday with no food until midnight."

We saved hard...it’s all gone now

Last December, the charge was dropped because the Crown Prosecution Service deemed it was not in the public interest to proceed. Mr Bateson said by then, the couple could not continue their legal fight because they could no longer afford to, having already spent £45,000. He said: "We saved and worked hard. It's all gone now."

The fence has not been rebuilt, while the Land Registry has rejected the revised deed because it was not happy with the way the Batesons' signatures were witnessed. Sowerby's and Mrs Leedham's family were contacted for comment.