PARISH COUNCILLOR LOSES BOUNDARY DISPUTE OVER FENCE AT £1.2M HOME

David Todd, a parish councillor, and his partner Caroline Hodge have lost a four-year court battle over a dog-proof fence at their East Sussex property. The couple purchased Wyland Wood, a 19th-century country house set on 2.7 acres, in 2018 after being assured by estate agents that a fence enclosed the property to contain their two Labradors. Their neighbours, Richard Marsh and Rebecca Marsh, who bought adjoining land in May 2021, removed and repositioned the fence after discovering it did not align with the boundary shown in land registry documents.

Mr Justice Michael Green ruled that the fence does not mark the true boundary and that the disputed half-acre of land, along with an access strip, belongs to the Marshes in accordance with official records. Mr Todd and Ms Hodge had argued that a reasonable purchaser would have assumed the fence marked the boundary when buying the property. They also claimed they had reached a boundary agreement with the previous owner of the Marshes' land via email, but the judge found that only a simple conversation about shared fence repair costs had taken place, with no conscious agreement about the boundary's location.

The judgment concluded that the previous owner had not deliberately addressed the boundary question and therefore could not be said to have agreed to its location. Mr Todd's challenge to the earlier ruling has been dismissed, ending the dispute in favour of the Marshes.