A pensioner was today evicted from her home after losing a five-year legal battle with her neighbour over a 1ft strip of land.
Jenny Field, 77, had her £420,000 bungalow seized by bailiffs after losing a boundary dispute which ended up in the courts.
The property in an otherwise quiet cul-de-sac in Poole, Dorset, is expected to be sold to cover the £113,000 legal bill she owes neighbour Pauline Clark, 64.
Last year a county court judge ruled in favour of Mrs Clark in the drawn out saga over a party fence between their two bungalows.
Ms Field refused to answer the door to court bailiffs when they arrived at her bungalow at 11am today.
She was heard shouting at them to leave her alone before a locksmith used an electric saw to remove the lock and gain entry to the property.
Ms Field stepped outside in her slippers to explain her case to the bailiffs and was then refused re-entry.
She will be allowed to return to remove her belongings.
Mrs Clark, 64, did not wish to comment on today’s events but her son-in-law Matthew Corbin watched on from the front garden of his mother’s home.
He said: ‘My mother-in-law has very mixed emotions today.
‘There is relief but she doesn’t know what will happen next. It’s not nice to see someone get evicted and we wish it didn’t come to this.’
Jenny Field, 77, had her £420,000 bungalow seized by bailiffs after losing a boundary dispute which ended up in the courts
The boundary between Ms Field’s bungalow on the left, and neighbour Pauline Clark’s on the right has been at the centre of a five-year dispute
Ms Field was evicted after refusing to accept Mrs Clarke’s legal victory over the boundary, leading to legal bills skyrocketing to six figures as the case repeatedly went back to court
Ms Field was today locked out of her home after eventually walking outside in slippers
She was later seen leaving the cul-de-sac with several bags of possessions
Pauline Clark, pictured leaving Bournemouth County Court last September, said she had been ‘living a nightmare’
The spectacular row exploded in this quiet corner of Dorset over a boundary fence that Mrs Clark erected in 2020.
Grandmother Ms Field claimed her neighbour moved the fence 12ins onto her land and hired her own contractors two months later to have it taken down.
She later repositioned it to reclaim what she described as her land.
Mrs Clark took her neighbour to court and won, with Ms Field ordered to cover the cost of the fence she took down and two-thirds of Mrs Clark’s legal fees, which amounted to about £21,000.
But Ms Field refused to accept the outcome and the case went back to court multiple times, which sent the legal bill skyrocketing to six figures.
Last September, a county court judge dismissed Ms Field’s final appeal – in which she claimed Mrs Clark’s case had been fraudulent – as ‘totally without merit’.
She was given a deadline of December 6 to pay the £113,000 bill or her home would be sold from under her to settle the debt.
Judge Ross Fentem said the ‘draconian order’ was a last resort but pointed out that Ms Field had been given every opportunity to pay.
After the deadline passed, Mrs Clark’s solicitors successfully applied for an eviction notice.
Ms Field has failed to put her home up for sale and instead besieged the courts with emails and letters insisting her neighbour was in the wrong.
She stuck a sign on her front door stating that any attempt to evict her was invalid and that she was being harassed.
After being removed from her home today, Ms Field repeatedly rang the doorbell and asked to be let back inside.
Ms Field, a divorcee who bought the bungalow in 2016, said: ‘They’ve changed the locks and won’t let me back in.
‘How can I be evicted for something I haven’t done?
‘I have got nowhere else to go. This is my home and my property.
‘I have had five years of this rubbish. I am really upset by the whole thing. I have been put through hell by that b**** next door.’
Ms Field was heard shouting at bailiffs to leave her alone before a locksmith used an electric saw to remove the lock and gain entry to the property
She will be allowed to return to the house to remove her belongings
The bungalows overlook a green boasting mature trees in the quiet cul-de-sac
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Pensioner to have home seized in boundary dispute over 1ft strip of land
Mrs Clark’s solicitor Anna Curtis previously said: ‘She believes she is not liable for these debts.
‘There has been no discussion or offer of settlement, no suggestion of refinancing or obtaining equity on the property. There has been no proper response in relation to the claim.’
She confirmed that Ms Field will be allowed back into the property to clear out her belongings.
She said there was ample equity in Ms Field’s property for her to pay the debt and still be able to buy a comfortable retirement property mortgage free and and have cash leftover.
In passing his judgement at Bournemouth County Court last September Judge Fentem said: ‘This is a very long-running boundary dispute. The defendant (Ms Field) has, in various ways, sought to relitigate the original case.
‘Her case is fundamentally that …the original fence was a boundary fence and that it was entirely on her land.
‘Every attempt to relitigate has failed. She appears to be convinced some form of fraud has taken place. There appears to be no reasoned basis for the allegation.
‘There is no evidence in the documentation any wrongdoing was committed.
‘I have no confidence at all the claimant (Mrs Clark) will be paid what she is owed except by an order for sale.
‘This matter needs resolution, the parties need to find a way of putting the entirety of this dispute behind them.
‘The order for sale is a last resort and Draconian remedy but taking all the factors into account I should make an order for sale in this case.’
