There isn’t a lawyer in general practice who has not, at some time, had to deal with a neighbours dispute. Even if you’re not a lawyer, you will almost certainly have heard of a row in your neighbourhood. Badly parked cars, boundary disputes, loud parties, noise generally. And not just of the human variety; it can be dogs, cats and I even once had to deal with allegations of a noisy aviary. You name it and your local County Court judge has had to preside over it.
You rather expect it in the sometimes overcrowded/overheated environment that can pervade in urban and suburban areas but it jars somewhat when the dispute tumbles out of the rolling green hills of the Lake District.
Read this:
“96. Having listened to 12 days’ oral evidence and 22 witnesses as to fact, I am satisfied that since the sale of LCF by Frederick Young in 1965, the first defendant has been unable to accept the fact that he has no legal dominion over that property. It is clear from an examination of the historical evidence that it was his intention to make the life of those who occupy LCF a misery; that his campaign of belligerence has continued since the death of his father; that he has a deep-seated aversion to those wealthy enough to afford a second home the size of LCF; and that the notoriety of his conduct in the locality is an open secret. Though nothing turns on it, the allegation that he stated publicly that he had acquired a number of dead rats and it was his intention to strew the corpses over the courtyard at LCF, is one that I am inclined to accept. It is consistent with his conduct that has been demonstrated to my satisfaction and, I would add, his showing his buttocks to the security camera at LCF goes only to show his juvenile and disrespectful attitude.
97. Without causing violence to language I am unable to describe his near 40 year campaign of truculence as transitory.”
That’s an extract from the judgment of Mr Recorder Duncan Smith following a trial in the Carlisle County Court in the case of Raymond ~v~ Young. Mr & Mrs Raymond had not suffered the abuse over that 40-year period. They had purchased the property from the last in line of a number of previous owners who had moved on but when it came to them, they took the Young family to court and the case eventually ended up in the Appeal Court – not because the Youngs took issue with the findings of fact but there were aspects of the awards of damages and costs that they believed worthy of appeal.
And, it has to be said, their Lordships agreed with them on one comparatively minor issue: that there had been an element of double compensation where two heads of damages overlapped. But their main complaint – that the injunctions granted against them should mitigate the award of damages for future diminution in value of the Raymonds’ property – was rejected.
The case highlights the extent to which these matters can be a blight on the value of a property and the extent to which the courts will go in awarding damages to compensate for that.
In this case, one of the heads of damages awarded quantified the diminution in value of the Raymonds’ property at £155,000 and it was argued on behalf of the Youngs that, the learned judge having granted an injunction restraining them, they would not be able to commit the acts in future that would cause a loss in value to the Raymonds. A wonderful example of the adroitness of the legal mind. But Mr Edward Bartley Jones QC, the silk Representing Mr & Mrs Raymond, was master of it and satisfied their Lordships that the injunction being personal to Mr & Mrs Raymond it would not protect a future owner and the exigencies of modern conveyancing procedure required them to notify a prospective purchaser of the existence of the injunction.
Their Lordships even went so far as to uphold the award of indemnity costs against the Youngs. A rare occurrence but justified, apparently, on the basis that Defendants were as much a nuisance to the judge in the conduct of their case as they had been to their neighbours.
One can’t help but wonder if there had been precedent such as this available to Mr & Mrs Raymond’s predecessors in title, they might have been encouraged to sue rather than move and the decision stands not only as an encouragement to those suffering at the hands of miscreant neighbours but thoroughly reviews the manner in which damages will be assessed and awarded in such cases.
FOOTNOTE: Mr & Mrs Young ended up losing their family home and bankrupt.
