Widow, 79, loses home after bitter battle with neighbour over £300 fence
A pensioner has had to sell her home to her own daughter after losing a battle with her neighbour.
Muriel Middle, 79, objected when Alexander Miles removed part of a fence connecting their properties shortly after moving in so that he could build an extension.
She brought in builders to replace the fencing and said the drainpipe was on her land in Pontyclun, South Wales.
Mr Miles responded, saying the new fence did not match the previous size or colour.
A legal fight followed and Mrs Middle, who has lived in her mid-terrace home for 20 years, now faces a £15,000 bill.
She said: ‘The man next door has made my life a living hell. I don’t think I’m going to last much longer after going through this for the last couple of years. I just feel ill all the time.
‘I tried to get a loan and equity release, [but] the only way to do it was to gift the property to my daughter so she could get a mortgage to pay the debt off.’
She claimed that she replaced 11 planks of wood, resulting in Mr Miles taking out an injunction against her because they were the wrong colour.
Mrs Middle said: ‘If you replace wood panels, you’re not going to get the same colour, the existing ones will always be faded.’
She said she was unable to afford a lawyer to represent her when the case was heard at Cardiff Civil Justice centre and found in Mr Miles’s favour.
During that hearing, she said: ‘How I find myself in court defending myself I do not understand. I have done nothing wrong and broken no laws.
‘I’ve not had the easiest life. My first daughter and my husband died and I was left to raise my remaining daughter on my own.
‘As devastating as that was, I can honestly say I have never encountered the stress this has put me under.’
Mrs Middle said: ‘At my age, I thought I’d be able to relax a bit. But this worry has been hanging over me and even taking the drastic step of [my daughter] Sam getting a mortgage on the property, it hasn’t gone away.
‘I can’t afford anything at all, not even a cup of coffee if I go to the shops.’
Her daughter Sam told MailOnline: ‘This has absolutely crushed us. It has left my mother needing to sell her home after working hard all her life.
‘She is too old to remortgage so she had to sell the house to me to free funds to be able to pay this debt. None of this should ever have happened.’
Mr Miles has declined to comment.
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