Couple at war with 'monstrous' neighbours accused of boxing in their £600K ... trends now

Couple at war with 'monstrous' neighbours accused of boxing in their £600K ... trends now
Couple at war with 'monstrous' neighbours accused of boxing in their £600K ... trends now

Couple at war with 'monstrous' neighbours accused of boxing in their £600K ... trends now

A couple is at war with their 'monstrous' millionaire neighbours who they claim boxed in their £600,000 dream home with a six-foot fence that allegedly prevents them from using their front door.

Gary and Kerry Hambling claim the fence put up by neighbours Garry and Jenny Wakerly has wiped £100,000 off the value of their £600,000 Suffolk house.

They also allege it blocks access from their stables to the field, cuts off the views across the field previously enjoyed from their living room and makes the ground floor of their house dark.

The couple has now asked a High Court judge to force their neighbours to reopen their 'front door' access, labelling their actions 'monstrous' and 'deliberately and unpleasantly antagonistic'.

However, the Wakerlys allege the Hamblings have been using the door to unlawfully 'trespass' on their driveway whilst going between their cottage and the field, and that they put up the fence to stop them.

A couple is at war with their 'monstrous' millionaire neighbours who they claim boxed in their £600,000 dream home with a six-foot fence that allegedly prevents them from using their front door

A couple is at war with their 'monstrous' millionaire neighbours who they claim boxed in their £600,000 dream home with a six-foot fence that allegedly prevents them from using their front door

Judge Sir Anthony Mann heard that the 'unfortunate' neighbours' squabble started in 2016, about a year after the Hamblings had moved into Garden Cottage. 

The Hamblings bought their beloved Polstead home in 2015. The four-bedroom chocolate box home included a quarter of an acre of gardens, its own stable block and a two-acre field just yards away, across a drive owned by the Wakerlys.

But 'friction' arose between the families after the Wakerlys - whose £1million Tills Farm Cottage lies on the same former farm as the Hamblings’ - grew upset by the plans their neighbours had to make changes to their rural property.

They were particularly frustrated when the Hamblings turned part of their field, which had been used by the previous owners of Garden Cottage to exercise horses, into a 'car park' for 'vans and trucks'. 

The Wakerlys responded by telling Mr Hambling, 48, and Mrs Hambling, 44, that they were no longer permitted to cross over the driveway - which lies between the Hamblings' front door and their field - to access the field from their house.

The Hamblings had inherited a right of way to access their field up their neighbours' track from the main A1071 Hadleigh Road when they bought the property, the court heard.

They were forbidden from getting to the cottage the same way under the right of way, but had been permitted to cross the track by their neighbours whilst relations were still friendly.

But in June 2017 after a frosty exchange of lawyers' letters - during which the Hamblings were accused by their neighbours of 'trespassing' on the drive - the Wakerlys had contractors put up a 1.8metre high close-boarded wooden fence, with concrete posts and gravel boards, along the edge of their drive and down one side of their neighbours front garden.

The fence effectively boxed the Hamblings in, leaving them forced to access their field via the driveway on the other side of their property and then along the 60mph main road.

The legal row now centres on the wording of the right of way, granted to the then-owners of the property in 2001 and stating that the Wakerlys' driveway could be used 'for access to the field not to Garden Cottage'.

The case has already hit court once with Judge Karen Walden-Smith at Norwich County Court ruling in favour of the Wakerlys and allowing the fence blocking off Garden Cottage from the track and the field to remain.

Giving her judgement in September 2021, she described the row as a 'highly unfortunate case where owners of two country properties have not been able to find a way in which they can co-exist without friction.'

Gary and Kerry Hambling (pictured outside London's High Court) claim the hence put up by neighbours Garry and Jenny Wakerly has wiped £100,000 off the value of their £600,000 Suffolk house

Gary and Kerry Hambling (pictured outside London's High Court) claim the hence put up by neighbours Garry and Jenny Wakerly has wiped £100,000 off the value of their £600,000 Suffolk house

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