A grandmother is locked in a bitter battle with her neighbours claiming they stole 1.1 metres of her garden.
Rose Smith, 60, spent £12,500 and five months transforming the end of her garden, by adding decking and a hot tub, in time for her birthday.
But the retired teacher was devastated when she says she got home from work to find the fence ‘ripped up’ and part of the lawn had been ‘cut out’.
She said the police are powerless to intervene because it’s a ‘civil matter’ and has now turned to the Land Registry to try and reclaim what she believes is hers.
A professional boundary survey last month appears to show her original fence was in the correct position, Rose said.
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‘What began as my dream garden has turned into a living nightmare,’ said Rose, who lives in a three-bed terraced home in Hayes, west London.
‘I won’t stop until what’s mine is finally respected.
‘I do have a little bit of sympathy for him because he honestly thinks it is his land, but just the way he has gone about it is vile – he just doesn’t stop.’
‘I just want to be able to relax in my garden with my family.’
The nightmare began in April 2024, when Rose received a letter from Land Registry, she said.
It said a neighbour was trying to claim land behind her garden through adverse possession – or squatter’s rights – even though Rose was the registered owner.
The medium sized patch of land had been derelict, overgrown and untouched for years.
‘I didn’t even realise the land was mine,’ Rose said.
‘I have lived there 10 years! As soon as I found out, I wrote straight back disputing it.’
After months of waiting, Rose was told by land registry that her neighbour’s claim had been dismissed, she said.
She then began to transform the forgotten patch into a new part of her garden, putting up a new fence and extending the space just over a metre, in line with the boundary plan from land registry.
The labour of love, which took five months, was almost complete by the time of her birthday last June, which she hoped to celebrate with family in her new back garden.
But peace didn’t last long. In August 2025, the neighbour tried to claim the land again – this time contacting her via a solicitor, she says.
On September 22, she returned from work to find part of her garden had been claimed.
‘He had cut out a bit of our garden,’ Rose said.
‘I genuinely didn’t believe what was happening – who does that?
‘The neighbour had ripped out my fence. He sawed about a metre off my garden at a slope and taken five wooden planks from the hot tub surround.
‘He left all my hard work ruined; I couldn’t believe that someone could do such a thing to someone’s property.’
Rose said the neighbour also chopped a metre off her decking and back fence, replacing it with his own fence, and then parked two cars and a JCB dumper truck right up against it.
She claims she found a teenager guarding the boundary.
When confronted, she said the teen told her he’d done it because ‘it’s my land’ and claimed it was his ‘legal right’, waving a different boundary plan that contradicted Rose’s official title.
Rose reported the damage to police and gave statements but was told it was a ‘civil matter’ despite £2,000 of damage, she claims.
On September 24, Rose’s daughter and a friend removed the fence the neighbour had built.
But another was erected in its place on December 1, this time encroaching even further onto Rose’s land, she said.
Last month, a professional boundary survey confirmed Rose’s title plan is correct – the entire new fence is on her land.
Now Rose is working with the Land Registry to investigate the easement and decide her next steps.
‘I just wanted a garden where my grandchildren could play safely – instead, it’s been stress, damage and months of worry,’ she said.
The neighbour was contacted twice for comment.
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