Couple win battle with neighbours over land outside £1.3m home

A green-fingered couple have won a legal fight with their millionaire neighbours after they tore up their plants and installed a garden gnome on an eight feet patch of lawn outside their £1.3million home.

Expert gardener Liz Dobson and her former British Airways executive partner Andrew Pleming, both 60, had long tended the tiny parcel of land outside their detached home in leafy Dorking, Surrey.

For years the couple had maintained the eight by three foot patch by mowing and raking the lawn, letting their children play on the grass and even at one point embedding a sign with their door number in the soil.

But the seeds of conflict were sown after their new neighbours, company CEO Alison Unsted, 47, and husband Darren, 54, moved into the £1million three-bed detached home next door in August 2022.

Just a few months after settling in, the Unsteds asserted their claim over the strip, clearing the couple’s plants and replacing them with a garden gnome.

The neighbours’ row went before a judge, with Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming claiming adverse possession – also known as ‘squatter’s rights’ – over the strip on the basis they had used it as their own for years.

While the couple did not dispute that the strip was held under the title of the Unsteds’ property, they claimed they and previous owners of their home had used the land for decades without protest from their neighbours.

Now, despite initially losing before a tribunal, the couple have been handed victory after Judge Elizabeth Cooke allowed their appeal at the Upper Tribunal and found they had been in possession of the land since at least 2002. 

The Upper Tribunal, sitting in London, heard that the patch of garden lies at the end of the two sets of neighbours’ driveways, on Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming’s side, but was registered under the title of the Unsteds’ house.

However, Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming said they had always used the triangular patch as if it was theirs from when they bought their next door house in Dorking, in 2009.

They used it as a route from their upper to lower lawn, their children used it to get to and from a rope swing, while Mr Pleming and Ms Dobson, who the judge said was ‘very knowledgeable’ about plants and soil types, mowed it, replaced topsoil and planted seeds.

But, nine months after moving in, the Unsteds set about asserting their rights over the tiny grass parcel when they ‘re-took possession of the disputed land on May 9, 2023 by removing the appellants’ plants and installing a garden gnome’, said Judge Cooke.

Taking their neighbours initially to the First-tier Tribunal, Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming did not dispute that the strip was held under the title of their neighbours’ property.

But they claimed it was theirs in line with the law of ‘adverse possession’ since they and the previous owners of their home had used and enjoyed the strip for decades without protest from their neighbours.

Mr Pleming gave evidence that the couple had used the disputed land just like the rest of their garden and front drive, using it as a path for their mower and wheelbarrow, putting their house number sign on it, and after 2010 adding plants such as sweet peas and lupine to richen the soil, and planting clover from 2012.

The First-tier Tribunal judge found that the couple had established possession since 2018, but this wasn’t long enough to qualify for permanent rights.

He held that while the two keen gardeners had mowed and cultivated the patch, he wasn’t convinced they had planted herbs such as clover in 2011 or 2013, which would have helped prove their permanent status.

He ordered the land registrar to ‘cancel the couple’s application to be registered as proprietors of the small area of land’, prompting them to launch their appeal to Judge Cooke in the Upper Tribunal.

Allowing the appeal this week, Judge Cooke said the evidence showed Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming had in fact exhaustively cultivated the tiny patch since moving in.

‘The full picture is that, since the appellants bought the property, they have mowed, raked and scarified the lawn, and replaced topsoil and turf where necessary now and then, let their children play on the grass, used it to take the mower and barrow to the lower terrace, put a sign on it, and introduced herbs into the grass,’ she said.

‘Looking again at the nature of the land, I fail to see what more an occupying owner could have done.’

Supporting their case, a previous owner of the Unsteds’ home had told the court that she did not even know the patch of land was there and had always treated everything on the other side of the drive as belonging to Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming.

Giving judgment, Judge Cooke said: ‘People do not generally mow their neighbours’ grass without their agreement,’ said the judge.

‘Nor do they let their children play on it. Nor do they replace topsoil on it or plant herbs in it,’ she added, ruling that Mr and Mrs Unsted’s bid to ‘repossess’ the strip with their gnome had failed.

‘Taken together, it seems to me perfectly obvious that Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming were in possession of the disputed land, and that their acts of possession taken together demonstrated their intention to possess it.

‘I substitute the tribunal’s decision that the appellants have shown that they and their predecessors have been in adverse possession since at least 2002 until the respondents dispossessed them in 2023.

‘I will therefore direct the registrar to respond to their application for registration as if the respondents’ objection had not been made.’