Raging mum ripped out neighbour’s gutters in £150k row over rainwater dripping into garden
A RAGING mum ripped out her neighbour’s gutters in a £150,000 legal battle.
Celia Tan went to war with church-goers Robert and Helen Flach after rainwater kept dripping into the garden of her £700,000 home.
Divorcee Tan moved into the property on an affluent west London street with her daughter Rebecca, which was next door to the Flachs’ £1.2m house.
Soon after, a bitter row was sparked over the position of the boundary between the two properties.
Tan became aggravated when a defective gutter, she claimed was over the boundary line, continued to leak rainwater onto her land.
She told a Judge that the gutter runs through the middle of the wall of the Flachs’ garage extension, while her neighbours insisted it is a few inches beyond the wall.
Despite being connected to the Flachs’ home, Tan called in workers to remove it, which then created “toxicity” on the street, a court heard.
“Passive aggressive” Tan also claimed her neighbours used their teenage daughter’s “deafening” drumming as a weapon to annoy her and that she was being harassed by them.
But Judge Alan Saggerson dismissed Tan’s case branding her “psychologically incapable of acting reasonably”.
He found in favour of the Flachs on the boundary issue and also in relation to Tan having removed their guttering as it was decided it should have been replaced years ago.
Judge Saggerson said: “It became clogged with debris, it sagged, overflowed and slowly began to disintegrate.
“This resulted in occasionally significant wet-weather overflows of water…as this gutter failed to cope.
“But Ms Tan had then taken unilateral, and in my judgement, extraordinary and unreasonable steps to address this occasional annoyance by getting workmen to take it down and throw it in her neighbours’ garden.”
What are my rights in this situation?
BOUNDARY disputes are a common reason for neighbours to fall out.
We explain how to resolve a boundary dispute with your neighbour.
Check the boundary
You can check the boundary by looking at the the deeds to a property.
If you haven’t already got these, you can purchase them from the Land Registry on the government’s website for £3.
This will show the layout and boundaries of the land you own.
Note that you can also purchase a neighbour’s title deeds to see whether any extra property boundaries are outlined in theirs that aren’t in yours.
Sometimes, a T will be marked on a property line to denote responsibility for the boundary.
If you’re in a dispute with a neighbour about property boundaries, you can get the Land Registry to step in.
It will be able to define a boundary that everyone agrees on and will prevent future arguments.
However, this can be difficult as the Land Registry has strict requirements and needs detailed plans.
Try a mediation service
It’s best to keep tensions low by talking things through if possible and avoid making the situation worse.
If you really can’t come to an agreement, mediation services could be a good place to go as they’re cheaper than court costs.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors offers a service to help neighbours resolve rows about boundary lines and related issues.
The overflows had been “once in a blue moon” and not often enough to found a successful claim against the Flachs, Saggerson added.
“Occasional irritation it might have been, but not an actionable nuisance,” he continued.
“Neither am I satisfied that Ms Tan’s action in removing the gutter altogether and installing diversionary pipework was, objectively considered, necessary, reasonable or proportionate.
“The removal of the guttering and installation of alternative pipework was not legitimate abatement of an actionable nuisance, but rather spiteful, punitive actions designed to aggravate the claimants.”
He ordered that the guttering be replaced at the Flachs’ cost, because it needed changing years ago.
Saggerson also dismissed all of Tan’s complaints of nuisance and harassment, ordering her to pay her neighbours’ lawyers’ bills, with £77,500 up front, on top of her own.
Tan is now appealing against the decision.