Rosa Bell and her husband Murray watched helplessly in horror as the boundary fence was removed, their patio dug up, and shed torn down in the garden of their £800,000 home in Tadworth, Surrey
The backstory behind a bitter neighbourly war that saw a woman “steal” a strip of next door’s back garden has been revealed.
Victoria Huyeng Myers had been locked in a feud with retirees Rosa, 67, and Murray Bell, 71, for three years over planning permission related to her £800,000 detached home in Surrey.
The elderly couple were holidaying in Australia when they logged into their CCTV and saw builders employed by their neighbour busy digging up their garden. Mrs Myers had taken a drastic step in their row over where the boundaries of either property lay.
But the issue started with something that would seem trivial to the rest of the world – a disagreeement over the position of an outbuilding gutter.
The feud started between company CEO Mrs Myers, her engineer husband Michael, and their neighbours, after the Bells were approved planning permission for an extension. The Bells had concerns over their neighbours overhanging guttering. They said it would have affected their plans.
Both families had their own surveys done independently, and they were ‘inconclusive’ on the boundary, with only ‘crude’ deeds drawn up in the 1930s before the homes were built 20 years later. Mrs Bell said she failed in a court bid for damages but no legal ruling on who officially owns the land has yet been made and she claims no attempt was made by the neighbours to resolve the issue amicably.
When approached, Huy Eng Myers, known as Victoria, who moved into the property in with husband Michael in April 2018, declined to comment on the dispute. But she claimed they had been the ones who had been ‘harassed’ and reiterated they had ‘won a court’ ruling on the claim for damages.
Rose said: “It is such a stressful situation. We both retired and bought this lovely house that was going to be our forever home. But we have encountered such a nasty situation with the neighbours decided to move their boundary fencing to our property without an application to court or agreement with us. We were away visiting our daughter in Australia and could see them invading our property, cutting plants, trees, scrubs.
“We have tried to do everything to rectify. We have had surveys done and spent a lot of money – but these people have just taken the law into their own hands. There has been no consequences for them – they broke into our garden moved the shed and dumped everything in front of our kitchen patio doors. I don’t understand. This is a living hell. Our only option seems to be spending a fortune on solicitor’s fees to fight it.”
Mrs Bell, 67, and Mr Bell, 72, moved into the detached three-bed 1950s house near Epsom Downs in 2019 after buying it for £670k. They first encountered their neighbours two years later when Mrs Bell applied for an extension to their house to build an office and utility room.
