A retired duo have blown their nest egg and one of them was forced to spend a night in a cell during in a fierce spat with their ex-neighbour over a fence erected on their mutual driveway.
Graham and Katherine Bateson claim they’ve shelled out a whopping £45k on solicitors since their deceased neighbour Wendy Leedham installed the barrier next to their bungalow. The pair sought an injunction to get the fence removed, insisting it blocked the entrance to their drive after its appearance in 2019.
The Batesons maintained that when they snapped up their two-bed home for £29,500 back in 1987, they were told that it came with a shared driveway with the house next door. They were under the impression there was an unmarked boundary between the homes that wasn’t to be built upon.
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However, their neighbour got the thumbs up from lawyers to erect the fence in Snettisham, Norfolk. Mrs Bateson, aged 73, lamented: “We’d lived here 32 years without any problems with the previous neighbours, they all agreed it was a shared drive.”
(Image: James Linsell Clark / SWNS)
“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.”
The legal tussle stretched over three long years until November, 2021, when the dispute finally headed to a mediation hearing.
The tribunal decided that a new deed should be drawn up to show the boundary between the two properties in line with the fence, allowing it to remain.
(Image: James Linsell Clark / SWNS)
Tragically, Wendy Leedham didn’t live to see the verdict. She passed away just months before the hearing in May, 2021, aged 74.
Her three-bedroom former pad is now on the market at £375,000 through estate agents Sowerbys.
Sowerbys’ online listing doesn’t explain the fence fiasco or the boundary row, leaving the Batesons worried that a fresh owner might erect a new one.
Mrs Bateson, who used to oversee a factory floor, shared: “We’re still living in fear they will put another fence up when there shouldn’t have been one in the first place.”
(Image: James Linsell Clark / SWNS)
Post-hearing, a surveyor’s report backed up the Batesons’ claim to the shared drive and open boundary.
In September, 2022, retired window cleaner Mr Bateson, 75, took matters into his own hands.
He recounted: “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.”
Come December, the charges were dropped because the Crown Prosecution Service believed it wasn’t in the public interest to pursue.
(Image: James Linsell Clark / SWNS)
By then, Mr Bateson felt that their legal scrap had to end as their war chest was empty after shelling out £45,000.
He lamented: “We saved and worked hard. It’s all gone now.”
Both sides paid their own legal fees.
The fence remains unrepaired, and the Land Registry has dismissed the updated deed due to dissatisfaction with how the Batesons’ signatures were witnessed.
Attempts were made to reach Sowerby’s for comment.
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