A construction boss and his wife are locked in a £250,000 court battle with their neighbours over claims they ‘invaded’ their garden and chopped down a 33-foot tall row of Leylandii trees.
Robert McCarthy and his wife Amanda have accused neighbours in Nazeing in Essex, of perpetrating a ‘systematic destruction’ of their garden.
They told Central London County Court their privacy had been ruined after the screen of giant conifers behind their house were hacked down.
Mr McCarthy says the trees – which were up to 33ft tall – were on his land and his neighbours had no right to cut them down, accusing them of an ‘invasion’ during a row over the position of the boundary between their gardens.
They also claim the stress of the neighbourhood war has ruined their health.
But their neighbour Foulla Bowler, 60, – and the two siblings she owns the house with – insist the trees were in fact in their garden and claim they wanted them removed due to ‘overshadowing’ and potential damage to a water course.
Now, the McCarthys are suing for around £115,000 in compensation, including planting a new Leylandii screen – in a case which is expected to run up more than £130,000 in lawyers’ bills on their side alone.
But Mrs Bowler and her siblings insist that they had every right to remove the trees which were ‘overshadowing’ their property and are counterclaiming for over £50,000 for damage to fences and a shed they say resulted from the dispute.
At Central London County Court, Judge Alan Saggerson was told that civil construction manager Mr McCarthy, 59, and his carer wife, Amanda, 61, bought their home in Common View, Bumbles Green, near Nazeing, Essex, in 2001.
The house, which Mrs McCarthy said had an ‘immaculate, very pleasant garden’ when they moved in, is bordered to the rear by Mrs Bowler’s home, known as Kormakitis.
Kormakitis had been her family home as a teenager, but she now lives there with her own family and it is owned by her, along with her two siblings, John Barberis, 63, and Mary Englishby, 58.
Barrister Christopher Coyle, for the McCarthys, told the judge that the two gardens were divided by a chain link fence, with a row of Leylandii trees on the McCarthys’ side.
The bitter boundary dispute erupted around 2018, when Mrs Bowler and her siblings claiming the dividing line was actually beyond the fence and trees, putting the Leylandii on their land.
And, despite knowing that there was a dispute, Mrs Bowler had in 2018 applied for permission to fell 29 trees, before the family went ahead with the plan, cutting down most of them in January 2022.
Mr Coyle said the felling work had continued into a second day even though the McCarthys wrote to the siblings via lawyers to request them to stop cutting.
Giving evidence, Mr McCarthy described it as an ‘invasion’ and complained of a ‘relentless destruction of my garden’.
He told the judge: ‘This is how we feel as a family.’
‘I can stand upstairs in my house and they can see me walking around,’ he said from the witness box.
‘I want my privacy back like I had.’
He added that, when the couple bought the house, they were led to believe that the chain link fence beyond the trees was the boundary, making the trees part of their property.
‘The trees were well-established when we moved in,’ he told the judge.
‘We thought the chain link fence was the boundary as it ran along. I had no reason not to believe that to be the boundary.’
He said his wife had become ill and is on medication due to the seven-year row, while it has also contributed to his own stress-related auto-immune disease.
‘We have never tried to land grab anything,’ he insisted.
‘All we have ever asked for is the original fence line boundary. We have not said we want to move into Kormakitis’ garden.’
Giving evidence herself, Mrs McCarthy said they had relied on the sellers’ documents when buying the house and that it stated that the trees were on their land.
‘There were trees and a fence and we took that as the boundary,’ she said.
‘The trees were on our side. When we moved in, the trees looked trimmed and well cared for.’
The McCarthys are suing the three siblings for about £115,000 in compensation, including £73,500 to plant new trees and restore their privacy, as well as a declaration that the true boundary is the line of the old fence.
The neighbours insist that they had every right to remove the fence and trees and are counterclaiming for over £50,000 for damage to fences and a shed they say resulted from the dispute.
Their barrister, Gregory Dowell, said John Barberis had helped his father plant the Leylandii many years ago, while others were later planted among them by the former owners of the McCarthys’ home.
However, all of them were on the Kormakitis land, he told the judge.
In first applying for permission to fell the trees in 2018, Mrs Bowler had cited ‘excessive overshading’ and ‘low amenity value,’ as well as the potential for damage to a water course, the court heard.
But for the McCarthys, Mr Coyle put to her in the witness box: ‘You knew there was a dispute with the claimants over this land and, despite that, you asked for permission to cut down 29 Leylandii trees.’
She replied: ‘Within our land.’
To which Mr Coyle responded: ‘The claimants say otherwise. Long before you applied to the local authority for permission to cut down the trees, you were aware there was a boundary dispute.’
Her brother, Mr Barberis, said he was there in 1981 when their father discussed buying Kormakitis and remembers hearing that the boundary was several feet beyond the fence.
‘Some of the trees are missing, not all of them,’ he added, when pressed on the 2022 felling. ‘These are trees that we planted and a fence that we put up.
‘I clearly remember our parents giving [the previous owner] permission to trim our trees from his side to stop them overshadowing his garden.’
After a three-day trial, Judge Saggerson reserved his decision on the case until a later date.
