"In an email dated 10 July 2020, Chelmsford informed Mr and Mrs Orchard that the defendants had built a retaining wall to the rear of 111A 40cm too close to the boundary and the enforcement team had requested the defendants to carry out remedial works to secure compliance within two months," he said.
The Hortons then claimed that the garden fence was not on the true boundary, with a fight over where it lies first going to Chelmsford County Court and then three times before High Court judges.
"Given the history and the way in which the dispute about the location of the boundary arose, I think it is more likely than not that it was Chelmsford’s threat to enforce the planning conditions relating to the proximity of the defendants’ structures to the boundary that prompted them to obtain the survey, which then enabled them to claim that they had complied with those planning conditions," he said.
The case returned to the county court last year, when the judge made an order that the Hortons pay the Orchards £35,000 in compensation for their trespass over the boundary.
Ruling on the case in July 2023, Judge Duddridge found that expert evidence called by the Orchards was right and that the true boundary was to the west of the line claimed by the Hortons.
