[Nicky91]

Pensioners embarked on a decade-long war over the parking space
Both sides have been devastated financially and emotionally by the dispute
The matter has finally been resolved by a land registry tribunal

It was a dispute between neighbours over a thin strip of concrete that could easily have been resolved amicably.

Instead, two sets of stubborn pensioners embarked on a decade-long war over the parking space – which has ended up costing them an eye-watering £120,000 in legal fees.

The bitter row revolves around a 30-inch wide strip of land which Alan Soden and his tenants used to get into their back garden.

But neighbours Raymond and Annette Timmins insisted it was part of their parking space and would position their car to deny access to the gate in the fence.

Only now – ten years after the initial bickering sparked a frenzy of legal threat and counter-threat – has the matter finally been resolved by a land registry tribunal.

And both sides say they have been devastated financially and emotionally by the dispute.

The row flared up soon after Mr and Mrs Timmins moved from Scotland to their bungalow on a small private estate in Maidenhead, Berkshire, complete with its own parking space. One day they received a visit from Mr Soden, to say he was upset at how they sometimes parked their car too far to the right of their 13ft wide space, so denying him right of way to his gate.

The complaint came even though Mr Soden had never lived in the property himself, having rented it out since buying it in 1987.

The row took a turn for the worse in February 2015 when a tenant living at Mr Soden’s left a note on Mrs Timmins’ car, reading: ‘Please don’t block our gate. I don’t want to scratch your car with my bike.’

Court papers say the already fraught relationship between the households ‘rapidly’ deteriorated after that.

Mr Soden took the case to tribunal – which has now ruled in his favour with the judge saying that he should have access to his garden on the grounds that it had become established practice. But 85-year-old Mr Soden ran up a staggering £76,000 legal bill – with the Timmins ordered to pay £27,000 towards it, as well as their own £45,000 bill.

‘I knew I was in the right, that is why I would not give up,’ said Mr Soden, who lives with his wife Vivian, 78, in an impressive £1.5 million five-bedroomed home in the nearby village of Cookham.

‘But yes, I admit there is no real sense of victory and the only people who have really won out of all this are the expensive lawyers.

'The money it has cost us is ridiculous when you look at what we were fighting over.

‘My wife found the stress of it very hard to deal with.’

Meanwhile, retired personal assistant Mrs Timmins, 73, insisted she was right to fight her case, despite the crippling cost

She said: ‘We have used all our life savings and had to draw down from Ray’s pension pot, but it was a matter of principle.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ing-bills.html

[arista]

They should have got the Council to sort it.
Years ago

[Nicky91]

Originally Posted by arista

They should have got the Council to sort it.
Years ago

or hired our Judge who is an expert at solving neighbour wars Mr Frank Visser



seen many of these cases on his show, and all of them get solved real quick by him

which would've ended this conflict sooner than these 10 years tbh