Published at 11:09, Thursday, 19 April 2012

A WHITEHAVEN couple can at last go ahead with renovation plans for their new home after a two-year legal battle with their neighbour.

The latest wrangle – the proposed re-routing of a public footpath at Swallow Barn, Lowca – was agreed this week following a planning inspector’s inquiry last month. It means Carol and Trevor Gilmour can begin work on transforming their house into a new family home. Currently they are living in a caravan on the site.

A long-running land ownership dispute with Lynn Brophy, who lives next door at Hallcat Farm, had threatened their plans for Swallow Barn, the property they bought back in May 2009.

It had been turned into a dwelling by previous owners back in 1978, but Mrs Brophy of Hallcat, which is joined onto Swallow Barn, questioned the rights of the Gilmours to an area of land in front of their house and mounted a legal challenge of “adverse possession’’.

A Land Registry adjudicator, sitting at Whitehaven last spring, ultimately found against Mrs Brophy and in favour of the Gilmours. He also denied permission for Mrs Brophy to appeal.

Mrs Brophy, however, subsequently made an appeal to the High Court, but that too has just been rejected. Now her objection on grounds of privacy, to the diversion of a public path across both Hallcat and Swallow Barn land has also been rejected.

The Gilmours wanted to build an extension over a small area of land that is part of the existing path route, and the diversion, now granted, will enable them to do this.

Mrs Brophy’s claim on her neighbour’s land was thrown out by HM Land Registry adjudicator Owen Rhys, who last summer found in favour of the Gilmours, who have now moved onto the site to start their renovations.

After the Gilmours bought Swallow Barn in May 2009, Mrs Brophy maintained she was entitled to ownership of some of the site and could claim ‘adverse possession’ of part of the Gilmours’ garden, having used it for 10 years.

The judge found that plans accompanying conveyance papers made it “absolutely clear that the disputed land was intended to be included within the Swallow Barn title”.

The land battle generated “very considerable ill will,’’ said Mr Rhys, who paid a site visit to the area.

Mrs Brophy claimed that since buying Hallcat Farm in 1997 she had maintained the disputed area and had exclusive use and possession of it. She also submitted photos of members of her family playing football, mowing the grass or carrying out other tasks on the land to support her claim of 10-year usage. But the Gilmours said such activity had been recorded after 2009, on their security cameras at the site, installed after they bought Swallow Barn.

The Gilmours maintained that on their inspection before purchase of Swallow Barn they could see no signs of this area of land having been recently looked after; it was unkempt and overgrown. Mrs Brophy said she did not tend it in the winter months.

Stephen Hargreaves, son of the previous occupant of Swallow Barn, the late Mrs Christina Hargreaves, gave evidence that his mother had been ‘an obsessive gardener’ up until her death in 2008 and she had cultivated most of the garden area with a rockery, fruit trees, vegetables and flowers.

Given the relationship between his mother and Mrs Brophy, the idea that Mrs Brophy or any of her family had used or occupied any part of the land was absurd, he told the adjudicator. He did not accept Mrs Brophy had ever used or maintained any part of his mother’s land. Mrs Brophy said she and her family had used all the area of disputed land since she had moved in, in 1997. At no time had Mrs Hargreaves told them to get off the land.

Mr Rhys questioned her evidence and said there were “certain unsatisfactory features’’ in her submissions. “I do not accept that Mrs Brophy or anyone in her family carried out any work of upkeep or maintenance to these parts of the disputed land prior to 2009,’’ he said in his judgement and concluded, in principle, that Mrs Brophy should pay the Gilmours’ costs.

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk