Pensioner has ‘no regrets’ after five-year courtroom battle for one foot of land that value her £420,000 dwelling – saying: ‘If I needed to do all of it once more I might’
A pensioner evicted from her home after losing a five-year legal battle with her neighbour over a 1ft strip of land insisted that she has ‘no regrets.’
Jenny Field, 77, was removed from her house in Poole, Dorset by bailiffs on Monday after a judge ordered that it be sold to pay the £113,000 she owes neighbour Pauline Clark in legal fees.
She has been provided with emergency housing by her local authority for the next six weeks, after which she will have to make her own living arrangements.
Ms Field told The Daily Mail: ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do after the six weeks is up or where I’m going to live.
‘My life has become a nightmare, everything is uncertain and it’s causing me a lot of stress. How could the court have done this to an old woman like me?
‘But I don’t have any regrets. I had to fight this case in the courts, I didn’t have any other option because this woman stole my land.
‘I’ve lost my home and it cost me a lot of money but if I had to do it all again, I would.’
She added: ‘Sometimes you just need to take a stand. My only regret is that I should not have bought a house next door to this woman (Ms Clark) in the first place.
Jenny Field, 77, said she ‘doesn’t regret’ her five-year court battle with her next door neighbour that led to her losing her home
The pensioner was evicted on Monday after bailiffs arrived and ordered the house be sold to pay the £113,000 owed to her neighbour
‘If I’d known what she was going to be like, I’d have bought a bungalow somewhere else.
‘I’ve only managed to collect a few bits of clothing from my home and am going to a local food bank so that I can eat. The court’s treatment of me has been disgusting but I had to do what is right.’
Ms Field has been given 21 days to empty the contents of her £420,000 home, which she purchased in 2016, before it is put on the market.
The dispute started after Mrs Clarke erected a boundary fence which Ms Field claimed was 12 inches on her land.
She hired her own contractors two months later and had the 6ft fence taken down. She later repositioned it to reclaim ‘her land’.
Mrs Clark took her to court and won, with Ms Field ordered to cover the cost of the fence she took down and two thirds of Mrs Clark’s legal fees, about £21,000 at the time.
But Ms Field refused to accept the outcome and the case went back to court multiple times, sending the legal bill skyrocketing to six figures.
She revealed that she has two grown up children who live close to London, but she does not want to move in with them as she does not want to be a ‘burden.’
Neighbour Pauline Clark pictured leaving Bournemouth County Court last September
The boundary between Ms Field’s bungalow on the left and neighbour Pauline Clark’s on the right has been at the centre of a five-year dispute
Ms Field was evicted after refusing to accept Mrs Clarke’s legal victory over the boundary
Ms Field added: ‘My kids have told me to accept the court judgment, pay off my neighbour, buy a new home with the money left over and move on with my life. But I can’t even think about the future at the moment.
‘I can’t sleep, my health is in a bad way and this whole matter has been absolute hell.’
Ms Field insisted that she does not have the funds to continue fighting her case in court but will attempt to challenge the ruling however she can.
She said: ‘I’ve sent emails to the Land Registry and the court telling them that this decision is wrong, and they have no right to evict me. But nobody is listening to me.’
Last September, a county court judge said Ms Field’s claims that Mrs Clark’s case was fraudulent were ‘totally without merit’ and made an order to have her home sold.
She was given a deadline of December 6 to pay the £113,000 bill or her home would be sold from under her to settle the debt.
Judge Ross Fentem said the ‘draconian order’ was a last resort, but that Ms Field had had every opportunity to pay.
Ms Field admitted that after moving into her bungalow relations between her and Mrs Clark had never been good.
She said: ‘She moved in a year before me in 2015 and to be honest, we never got on. We rarely spoke and never even had a cup of tea together. I’ve never liked her, and she’s never liked me.’
Mrs Clark’s solicitor Anna Curtis has said there was ample equity in Ms Field’s property for her to pay the debt and still be able to buy a comfortable retirement property mortgage free and have cash leftover.
In passing his judgement at Bournemouth County Court last September, Judge Fentem said: ‘This is a very long-running boundary dispute. The defendant [Ms Field] has, in various ways, sought to relitigate the original case.
‘Her case is fundamentally that… the original fence was a boundary fence and that it was entirely on her land.
‘Every attempt to relitigate has failed. She appears to be convinced some form of fraud has taken place. There appears to be no reasoned basis for the allegation.
‘There is no evidence in the documentation any wrongdoing was committed.
‘I have no confidence at all the claimant [Mrs Clark] will be paid what she is owed except by an order for sale.
‘This matter needs resolution, the parties need to find a way of putting the entirety of this dispute behind them.
‘The order for sale is a last resort and Draconian remedy but taking all the factors into account I should make an order for sale in this case.’
