Family forced to sell their home as garden fence row escalates to £500k bill

A years-long row between neighbours over a garden fence has escalated to the point of one family facing a near £500,000 legal bill and losing their home, a court heard.

Mark Coates, 56, and wife Louise, 52, have fought a long battle with their neighbours Brian Greenwood, 69, and Janice Turner, 65, after moving in next door near Hastings in 2015.

The row arose out of a disagreement over the position of a fence and ownership of a track beside their homes, but spilled into a “bitter” neighbours’ dispute, a court heard.

Each claimed the other had set up surveillance cameras to monitor the others, while Mr Coates, who is a full-time carer for his disabled son, was accused of swearing at his neighbours and throwing stones at their bedroom window.

The two couples had been warned when they first reached court in 2020 that the dispute could end in financial ruin for one of them and now, four years later, having lost the case, Mr Coates and his wife face just that.

High Court judge Master James Brightwell said a forced sale of the property, thought to be worth about £420,000, was the only way that the debt would be paid.

But Mr Coates told the judge that he doubted whether the house would sell for that amount, adding: “I don’t know who would want to live next to them anyway.”

The neighbours live on Eatenden Lane, a quiet road next to woodland in Robertsbridge, near Hastings, in the East Sussex countryside.

But they began rowing over the boundary between their gardens and between the Coates’ garden and an access track bought by their neighbours behind it.

But what was a row over a small strip of land descended into chaos, with allegations made on both sides of unneighbourly behaviour.

The case ended up before Judge Sarah Venn at Hastings County Court, who in September 2022 found against Mr and Mrs Coates on the row over the position of the boundary.

‘Juvenile behaviour’

But the matter did not even end there. Mr Coates was hauled back to court in October 2023 and accused of “juvenile behaviour” by his neighbours, in breach of the terms of an injunction made by Judge Venn to try to defuse the row.

He had damaged his neighbours’ property by throwing stones at a bedroom window and used abusive language, Judge Venn found.

The judge was shown video which she said showed Mr Coates approaching Mrs Turner, “visibly angry” and making “abusive comments and engaged in physically threatening behaviour”.

She also found that comments made by Mr Coates in court amounted to a “threat” to his neighbours or their property.

He was jailed for 252 days for contempt of court, reduced after 47 days behind bars to allow his immediate release at the Court of Appeal in December last year.

The sentence was reduced after the appeal judges overturned the finding by Judge Venn that Mr Coates’ in-court comments were a threat.

Earlier this month, the case went back to court as Mr Greenwood and Mrs Turner applied for an order for sale of the Coates’ house so that the bills can be paid.

“We are not going to stop fighting this matter, even if it’s eight or 10 years down the line,” Mr Coates told the judge. “We are representing ourselves because we haven’t got any money. The only asset we have is the property.”

Ruling that the house – thought by Mr Greenwood and Mrs Turner to be worth about £420,000 – should be sold, the judge said there was “no reasonable prospect” of the debt being repaid otherwise.