05 March 2024 , 18:26
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A gardener has been fined £27,000 after she hacked down next door's hedgerow to make her flowerbed bigger, both branding one another the "neighbour from hell".
Green-fingered Tersia Van Zyl and her husband Stiaan landed the hefty court bill after their neighbour Peter Walker-Smith took them to court over the horticultural dispute. Mr Walker-Smith got prickly after his neighbours reportedly chopped down the holly bush separating their Surrey gardens in April 2019 and replaced it with a fence.
The couple paid contractors to tear down the hedge in order to free up an extra two feet for a flower bed, a county court heard. But their excitement was promptly met with stern legal action when Mr Walker-Smith sued them, saying they had "no right" to remove the hedge as it was not theirs.
Following a trial at Central London county court, Judge Alan Saggerson blasted the couple's "spiteful" decision to cut the hedge down when they knew there was an ongoing dispute over who owned it. The couple, both 40, were told to pay their neighbour's £25,000 costs over the row after the judge found the "wretched hedge" in fact straddled the boundary between both residents' gardens.
They also agreed to pay £2,200 damages for trespass, having put up the fence to replace the hedge on their neighbour's land. As a result, they also now have to move the fence back into their garden.
The Van Zyls were sued for hacking down next-door's holly hedge to make their flowerbed two feet bigger (Jonathan Buckmaster)During the trial last month, the court heard that Mr Walker-Smith - a corporate treasurer for tobacco giant Imperial Brands which produces Rizla and Golden Virginia - bought his ground floor flat in Claygate, Surrey, in 2014. Quantity surveyor Mr Van Zyl and his wife moved into the maisonette above the following year
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But the relationship between the neighbours broke down in the following months as they rowed about garden space. Lina Mattsson, for the Van Zyls, said Mrs Van Zyl, a mum and keen gardener, wanted to chop down the hedge in order to make more room for her plants.
Barrister Jonathan Wills, for Mr Walker-Smith, described the hedge removal as "outrageous", and that, to further add to insult, the fence they erected in its place was on his client's side meaning they had also effectively grabbed land from his garden.
"The hedge should have remained, and the parties should have continued to enjoy their respective gardens on either side," he said. He added: "This isn't the biggest land grab in the world, but in a garden that is triangular, it does make a difference."
Giving evidence, Mrs Van Zyl said she considered Mr Walker-Smith the "neighbour from hell," because the row had taken away her "enjoyment" of her home. "This was my first property, where I got married, where my children were born," she said.
But Mr Wills said that Mrs Van Zyl herself deserved to be dubbed "the neighbour from hell". "It might be said that Mr Walker-Smith isn't the neighbour from hell, but that it is the neighbour who has removed a hedge that was there for very many years," he said.
Judge Saggerson described the dispute as "unfortunate", adding: "Each party has regarded the other as being unreasonable, even spiteful, and had to consider that the other has acted in ways that appear to be deliberately designed to aggravate the other."
The judge made an order that the Van Zyls pay their neighbour's lawyers' bills, with £25,000 up front ahead of a full assessment, and £2,200 on top for trespass. As well as the hedge, the case had also involved complaints by the Van Zyls about Mr Walker-Smith putting his bins on their land, which the judge refused to make an order over due to it having since been resolved.