A couple are in court against their neighbour because she ripped out their gutter after claims it leaked into her garden.
Insurance broker Robert Flach, 56, and his wife Helena, got into the row with their neighbour Celia Tan in 2019 and she claims it overhung the borders between their homes in Ruislip, west London.
The Flachs are suing Ms Tan for trespass and the £1,880 cost of replacing the guttering because they claim it is on their land, despite Ms Tan’s claims it leaked onto her garden, Central London County Court heard.
She claims the boundary runs through the middle of the Flachs’ garage and because of the positioning of the guttering on the garage this meant it dumped the rainwater on her garden.
Ms Tan told the court: ‘The gutter is over my land, but it’s not my responsibility. I have no use for the gutter, it’s not mine. It was causing damage and nuisance.’
She is counter-suing for £85,000 and claims the Flachs daughter, Maria, plays drums at a ‘deafening’ level while they were at church on Sunday mornings.
This is also to compensate for an alleged reduction in value of her home caused by trespass, encroachment and damage.
She is also seeking an injunction blocking the Flachs from sitting CCTV near her home.
But the Flachs’ barrister Adam Swirsky said this CCTV focused on their own garden and not on Ms Tan’s.
He said: ‘They are entitled to have CCTV – this may be thought prudent given the criminal behaviour order made against Ms Tan.’
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Ms Tan and her daughter Rebecca Edge moved into their two-bedroom home, next to the Flachs’ £1.2million home in October 2009, and the neighbours are also in a dispute about fences in the front and rear garden.
Mr Swirsky accused Ms Tan of ‘gradually over time moving your boundaries at the front and at the back further over into the Flachs’ property’.
This is a claim that she denies.
Ms Edge gave evidence about the drumming and said: ‘She would play for 40 minutes per day on average.’
But Mrs Flach replied: ‘Maria was at the local school where she was playing drums. She was sitting her grade five exams and needed practice time.’
She said her daughter played on a set of ‘dampened’ drums no more than once a week and this lowered noise.
The Flachs eventually got rid of their drum kit, it was claimed, because Ms Tan would bang on the walls with ‘spades and other implements’.
Ms Tan’s barrister told the court: ‘Her position is that the guttering was a trespass and, moreover, leaked and was causing damage to her property.
‘Her position is that the claimants configured their house so all the rainwater on the back of the house flowed along that guttering.
‘She blocked that off so there was no further water coming onto her property.’
Judge Alan Saggerson took issue with the cost of the litigation and said: ‘I know this is all very vexing for the neighbours, but we are talking about inches.’
But Ms Tan’s barrister said: ‘We are talking about inches, but nonetheless we are in a position where they have fallen out and it is causing arguments and it does have to be resolved.
‘The claimants say they own all of the wall of their garage and also a little strip of land beyond it, to which they don’t have any access.
‘It causes arguments. It may only be inches but unfortunately, absent a negotiated settlement, it matters. Unfortunately, we are where we are.’
Mr Swirsky also said Ms Tan previously clashed with the couple and other neighbours and was handed a criminal behaviour order after being convicted of harassment following a trial in 2016.
During that trial, she was accused of constantly complaining about parking and calling traffic wardens.
She also took film footage from her bedroom window and in the street and called other neighbours ‘scum’.
The trial continues.
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