Hi there.
We moved into current house 21 years ago.
The garden fences were already there and over time hedging and shrubs have grown through them from both sides.
There are steps that run down into the lower garden, again they were already there when we bought
So almost 6 years ago, the neighbour's adult daughter decided the fence was in the wrong place, (after a kind of dispute, which was unrelated to the boundary). For clarity, the previous owners had built the fence 10 years prior to our purchase and we'd lived there 15 years by then.
Their solicitor sent us really threatening letters, demanding we give them our garden steps and a strip of 3ft all the way along our garden, claiming in fact that they owned the steps and had even built them, despite them being within our fences and the neighbours don't have any access to them.
We hired a solicitor, who ultimately told them there's nothing to dispute, since the previous owners of our house built the dividing fence, along with the actual neighbours who were disputing the boundary, so wether it was in the wrong or not, its location had been agreed upon by both parties 25 years prior.
Another neighbour also confirmed this was correct and it's all in legal statements from them in our file.
Then tooing and froing of letters and ridiculous made up nonsense went on and on, costing us thousands in legal fees and got us nowhere.
Then both the elderly neighbours died within weeks of each other, so we assumed the dispute would be ended, but the daughter, (the instigator as she held power of attorney), who jointly inherited her parents house with her sister, came out shouting about the boundary again a couple of weeks ago, so I believe it starts again now?
What if anything can we do about this situation?
Its really taking its toll on us. We'd agreed a sale when this kicked off, so had to put a stop to it, but we do need to move, however can't with a dispute hanging over us.
I was literally doing gardening last week and she came screeching that I can't plant anything there, since I know full well she owns that bit, despite it being well inside our fence.
It has got ugly on occasions, needing police involvement, as she appears to be a bit unhinged, so there's no talking to her.
We've attempted to get them to either go to court to get it decided, or drop the case, through our solicitors, but they just ignored it all and their solicitors seem happy enough taking their cash for letters and responses.
Our solicitor then attempted to put them on notice that we were taking it to court, but they ignored the compulsory mediation requests, so that failed too.
They go quiet for a while, then send ridiculous claims again via a threatening solicitors letter, we reply, they ignore our reply and the cycle keeps repeating.
Their claims are often bizarre, eg that we planted trees in their garden overnight. They spy on us, take photos of us and our teens. They had their CCTV camera pointing in our window at one time, which the police made them change.
Their claim details had changed loads over the time.
They initially had a boundary survey done, which stated that our steps were wholly within our boundary, but their solicitors were demanding we give them up still?. The survey also stated that the boundaries were broadly in line with where they should be, but it said due to bushes and shrubs growing through old wire fencing on both sides, it was impossible to say they're 100% accurate. It additionally stated that our garden was 1 inch smaller than it should be by the deeds.
In fact all the survey said was, that our fence at one point was leaning 15cm out, because the neighbours had dug a huge deep trough, right next to the fence's post holders in the ground and all our fence posts started leaning over their side, which we've had to try remedy by using concrete, but the trough still exists and loads of our plants died as a result of the trough drying their soil and roots out.
Does anyone have any ideas about anything at all we can do? It's unbelievable that British law allows a situation like this to go on and on for almost 6 years without going to court. We can't sell, we can't go into our own garden without harassment.
We've stopped using solicitors now, as we'd been ignoring communications since they were adding nothing but bizarre claims of us doing things, but the neighbours were always clear that they were not dropping the claim. Like I say they're both gone, so after the daughter shouting, I expect it's all going to start up afresh now.
Does anyone know if there's anything at all we can actually do about this situation, I'd get a solicitor again to put a stop to it if there was some way.
Thank for any ideas or advice.