Row with neighbour over bin store on drive sees couple have to pay £175,000

A couple have been landed with a legal bill of nearly £150k after building a wooden bin store at their £1m country home. Kevin and Elizabeth Harrison-Ellis bought their bungalow in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, in 2020 and set about adding a first floor to accommodate their family.

Their neighbours Stuart and Anita Hunt, did not complain at the time. But when the Harrison-Ellises added a small wooden bin store on their driveway in 2022 it prompted the Hunts to object and launch legal action that ended up in the High Court. They claimed the extended house had become 'unsightly' and resulted in a loss of 'visual amenity' from the windows of their £2.3m house.

The Harrison-Ellis' have now been ordered to pay £25,000 to their neighbours - but were allowed to keep the moderations to their home, called Hillside, following a High Court ruling. However, their legal expenses during the five-year saga have amounted to nearly £150,000, according to Mr Harrison-Ellis, 47, the head of sales for a renewable energy company.

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The dad, who has one son and one daughter both under the age of 10, said: "I regret the situation massively. This was supposed to be our dream home. It was supposed to be our family home for the next however many years – hence why we reached out to [the Hunts] before we even moved in. Now it all just feels tainted.

"The main regret is buying the house. It's been nothing short of horrendous since day one. If he [Mr Hunt] had come forward in the first place we wouldn't have nearly £150,000 in court bills. We wouldn't have gone through two and a half years of hell. It just feels like we were in a no-win situation.

"Even though in a way we won because we get to keep the house, we've still lost tens of thousands of pounds. That was meant to pay for our kids' education. We were looking at university fees and it's all gone now. I can't even talk about it. But we do want to speak out because we want people to be aware of how these things work.

"We didn't know that planning permission didn't trump a covenant. We didn't know that you could get all the correct planning permission and still be taken to court. We want to make other people aware."

Before buying the property, the Harrison-Ellis' were made aware of historical building restrictions which dated back to when the two properties shared the same plot, according to High Court documents. These restrictions stated they could not build anything other than a single-storey home on the land once shared by the two properties.

The Harrison-Ellis' tried to visit the Hunts' to discuss their plans but learnt their property was rented out, documents said. They therefore gave the estate agent selling Hillside a letter to pass on to the Hunts - which said they were thinking of buying Hillside but wanted to add a storey to the property.

The letter said: "Ideally, with your permission, we would like to have the covenants removed and work alongside yourselves and the architect to come up with the best solution for all. We are happy to email or to bring the documentation reference covenants for you to see."

The Hunts received the letter but did not respond, according to High Court documents. Without a response, the Harrison-Ellises went ahead and bought Hillside for £740,000 in March 2020.

They applied for planning permission for "a first floor extension with roof changed, new porch, and new roof above garage". Permission was granted and building work began in June 2020. No issues were raised during the building process, which completed in December 2020, according to High Court documents.

At around the same time, the Hunts - who paid £1m for their home 'Korobe' in August 2019 - commenced the planning process to demolish the property and replace it with a modern three-storey house. Permission was granted in May 2021 and is currently nearing completion - boosting the value of the house to £2.3m, according to court documents.

However, in January 2023 - more than two years after the completion of the extension at Hillside - the Hunts wrote to the Harrison-Ellises claiming they had extended their home in breach of the restrictions. This came after they took issue with their neighbours' bin shed, which had been built in response to the noise from the Hunts' ongoing development.

The Hunts sought legal action against the Harrison-Ellises - arguing that the conversion had changed the 'character' of the area, had diminished the value of their home, and caused a loss of privacy. But in response, the Harrison-Ellis' applied for the covenants to be modified to allow their extension to stay - arguing that the Hunts' objections had come from a place of 'insincerity'.

Judge Elizabeth Cooke and Mrs D Martin TD MRICS FAAV ultimately deemed that there had been a loss of privacy for the Hunts in a judgement handed down by the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber). However, they accepted the Harrison-Ellises argument that the Hunts' "appeared to have been perfectly happy about Hillside until January 2023" - when the bin shed was built.

The judgment said: "They had no interest in the content of the restrictions until they took offence at the bin store. Their reaction to the bin store makes it clear that had they been the slightest bit unhappy about the extension of Hillside they would have taken steps to check the content of the covenants while the development was happening and before it was completed.

"It is not right to penalise the applicants now, when reversing the extension will be expensive and destructive, for the objectors' failure to act."

It said that it was unclear why the Hunts had waited "so long" to look into the restrictions - adding that many issues could have been avoided had they responded to the Harrison-Ellises initial letter.

"We do not suggest that their indignation at the development is entirely insincere," the judgment continued, "but we take the view that it is exaggerated, in light of the fact that they were clearly unbothered until January 2023."

The High Court granted the Harrison-Ellises application to amend the covenants and permit their extension - which has boosted the value of the property to just over £1m - but ordered they pay £25,000 in compensation to the Hunts.

And the ruling concluded: "In our judgment any carelessness or naivety on the part of the applicants is far outweighed by the unfairness of the objectors' behaviour. We have no hesitation in exercising our discretion to modify the restrictions so as to permit the extension of Hillside as it stands."

Reflecting on the judgement, Mr Harrison-Ellis said: "It's not nice after fighting for two-and-half years - but in a way we get to keep the house that we built. We don't know if we are going to have to pay this in a one-off sum of money."

The Hunts were approached for comment.