An elderly couple are suing their wellness guru neighbour for blocking access to the front lawn of their £900,000 cottage – which they say would force them to carry a mower through their house or down a flight of steep steps.
The territorial spat took place in Ditchling, an affluent Sussex village near the foot of the South Downs, which has become a ‘celebrity magnet’ in recent years.
Famous faces including Zoe Ball, The Snowman creator Raymond Briggs and Dame Vera Lynn have all made it their home.
Retired financial advisor Barry Dean, 75, and wife Sarah, 70, a former estate agent, say for years they have used a right of way over part of their neighbours’ land to bring their mower and wheelbarrows round to be able to easily tend their front lawn and keep it ‘looking smart’.
The pair’s new neighbours – wellness coach and ‘energy healer’ Claire White, 49, and her partner Bidjan Nathan, 57 – initially allowed the Deans access through their property.
But after a falling out between the neighbours, Mrs White and Mr Nathan put up a fence, which the elderly couple claim requires them to drag a mower through their cottage home or down some steps if they want to keep their grass neat.
Mr Nathan and Mrs White claim their neighbours have no right to cross the land attached to their £500,000 home.
The case has now reached court, with Mr and Mrs Dean suing their neighbours for blocking the right of way, demanding they be allowed through to mow the lawn.
Giving evidence at Central London County Court, Mr Dean told Judge Mark Raeside KC that dragging the heavy mower down outside steps at his Sandpit Cottage home – valued online at about £900,000 – always left him with a ‘few bruises’.
The judge heard the Deans moved into their sprawling village home in Ditchling nearly 40 years ago, while Ms White, an ’empowerment and wellbeing coach’ who also offers ‘energy healing,’ moved into the £500,000 house next door with her partner in 2007.
The Deans’ barrister, Michael Ranson, told the court that they had always used a ‘right of way’ over a strip of the neighbouring property’s land to access their front garden.
However, after Mr Nathan and Mrs White moved in, they went on to install a gate at the street end of the access route, creating a flashpoint for future problems, which came to a head during the Covid lockdown, he said.
‘On December 23 2020, the defendants locked the street gate and have refused to give the claimants a key, code or other means of opening the street gate,’ he said.
Around 18 months later, they went on to install another gate blocking off the disputed land where it adjoins the Deans’ garden, sparking their court claim to access.
The barrister said the older couple’s use of the access strip is vital to them in getting their lawnmower, wheelbarrows and other garden equipment to their front lawn to keep it ‘smart’ in summer months.
‘The disputed right of way is important to them because it’s the only means of vehicular access to the front of their property and the only convenient means of taking equipment such as lawnmowers into the garden at the front of the house,’ he told the judge.
‘The Deans, including through their gardeners, regularly exercised the disputed rights of way without complaint from anyone – including the defendants – between 1987 and 2020.
‘Vehicular access was used once or twice a year, but pedestrian access was approximately weekly outside the winter months.’
He said the gate through the new fence bordering the Deans’ garden has been designed so that it only opens from their neighbours’ side of the boundary.
‘Somebody standing in the Deans’ garden is not able to open the new gate,’ he said.
‘From time to time the defendants have also blocked the disputed right of way by parking cars on it, erecting gazebos and putting wooden and metal planters on the route of the disputed right of way.’
But for Mr Nathan and Mrs White, barrister Richard Bowles argued that the Deans have no right of way over his clients’ property and had only started using it regularly after the wellness guru and her partner had it resurfaced in June 2020.
After that the older couple began crossing the disputed land with their lawnmower and wheelbarrow, as well as Mr Dean using it to get to the High Street to buy his morning newspaper, he said.
Other routes to the front garden were available to the Deans, he continued.
‘It is notable that this claimed right of way is not the only access to the front part of the claimants’ garden, and there is access both from the house into the claimants’ front garden, as well as access around the sides of the house to get to the front part of the claimants’ garden, without the need to go through the house,’ he said.
But giving evidence, Mr Dean said going around the house involved him hauling the lawnmower down ‘steep narrow steps’ and round to the lawn, which was tortuous going.
‘I sometimes go down those steps, but not if I’m carrying the wheelbarrow,’ Mr Dean told the court, noting that in summer they would try and cut the grass of their front lawn at least every other week.
‘It’s hard to get a mower down those steps now, so my wife and I carry it down.
‘Those steps are very difficult with the mower, I’d usually end up with a few bruises or maybe damage the mower. Before Covid I never went down those steps.’
For Mr Nathan and Mrs White, Mr Bowles said there was no evidence of a right of way in favour of the Deans existing over their property when his clients moved in.
There were also few signs back then that the now disputed strip was being used to access the Deans’ front garden. The existing gates from the Deans’ garden to the strip were not in use, bushes had grown over them and ‘there were no tracks or marks on the lawns to suggest any use of a right of way’, he explained.
Challenging the Deans’ case, he argued that the conveyance they rely on to enforce their rights was never registered over their property, also claiming that the Deans have never paid towards maintaining the alleged right of way.
And it was not until four years after they moved in that the Deans first raised the issue of reaching their front lawn across their neighbours’ property, he continued.
In his written evidence, Mr Nathan said: ‘Mr Dean asked me if it was okay to cross our land and go through the gate to access his garden so that he could mow his lawn.
‘He explained the lawnmower was too heavy to go down the walkway and steps at the side of his property. I agreed and gave him consent as a neighbourly thing to do and it didn’t seem to be an unreasonable request.’
But for several years after this, they never saw the Deans or their gardeners using the contested right of way, claimed Mr Nathan.
The court heard that relations soured between the two sets of neighbours in 2019, partly fuelled by a dispute over their financial contributions towards maintaining the disputed access land.
When Mr Nathan and Ms White locked the street access gate, they provided a key and code to another neighbour, but not to the Deans, and in court Ms White was asked why they had refused to hand over a key to the elderly couple.
‘Because we were advised that they had no legal right of way over our property,’ she told the court.
When the Deans’ barrister asked her: ‘you wanted to stop them using the right of way?’ she replied: ‘we wanted to stop them intimidating and harassing us’.
Mr Bowles told the judge that after his clients carried out major resurfacing works over their land in July 2020, ‘this had a remarkable effect on the claimants who, having never previously used the disputed land, started to use it to access Ditchling High Street.
‘It was from around this time onwards that the Deans began using the disputed patch of land to access their front garden with their lawnmower and wheelbarrow,’ said the barrister – ‘taking advantage of the newly resurfaced area’.
In November 2020, lawyers for Mr Nathan and Ms White wrote to the Deans allowing them access for ‘occasional tree surgery and to allow you to mow your lawn’, but Mr Bowles claimed the couple took advantage by ‘continuing to access the disputed land and cross it frequently – and not for the purposes for which they had permission’.
This in turn prompted the Deans’ neighbours to ‘lock the gates against them’ and, in July 2021, the Deans ‘unilaterally installed a sign indicating that they had a right of way over the disputed land.’
In their claim against Mr Nathan and Ms White, Mr and Mrs Dean are asking for a court injunction directing that the street gate towards Ditchling High Street be kept unlocked, that new fencing put up by their neighbours be removed, plus a general declaration that ‘the defendants do not interfere with the exercise of the right of way’.
The trial continues.
