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Senior judges overturn village stream decision

0 Comments | Northern Echo, Jul 28, 2010 | by Will Roberts

A tiny stretch of a babbling brook is at the centre of a costly legal feud between neighbours living in a dales village, but for the losers of the latest appeal, heard by three of country’s top judges, the fight may continue. Will Roberts reports

WERE it not for a clause in their home insurance policy, the small stream at the end of Ian and Diane Pennock’s garden could have ruined them.

The couple, of Dalegarth, Moor Road, in Cotherstone, County Durham, went before the Civil Appeal Court, in London, to overturn an earlier ruling which identified their neighbour, Gillian Hodgson, as the owner of the brook, which runs between the two homes.

Yesterday morning, Lord Justice Mummery, sitting with Lords Justices Longmore and Wilson, threw out the couple’s appeal, ordering them to pay their own, and their neighbour’s, legal fees – a sum totalling more than [pounds]100,000 which, luckily for them, will be met by their insurers under the terms of their policy. The brook, which passes through the centre of Cotherstone, is only a few feet wide and barely deep enough to paddle in, yet it has divided the neighbours in more ways than one.

The row erupted after Mrs Hodgson, who has lived in her Kalmara home since 1993, objected to the Pennocks building a stone wall along the stream’s southern bank – insisting both banks were part of her property.

However the Pennocks, who bought the land to build their house on in 2005, rejected the claim and the dispute went to Newcastle Crown Court this month, withMr Justice David Richards ruling in favour of Mrs Hodgson.

The Pennocks argued that a plan attached to a 1993 conveyance clearly showed the boundary -marked by a black line – and that the stream passed into their ownership when they bought the plot on which their home now stands.

However, dismissing the Pennocks’ appeal, Lord Justice Mummery described the judge’s initial ruling as “clear, careful and correct”.

He had been entitled to take into account topographical features that existed on the land in 1993, including the post and wire fence.

“The unfortunate consequences of a case like this are that, in the absence of any compromise, someone wins, someone loses, it always cost a lot of money and usually generates a lot of ill- feeling that does not end with the litigation, ” said Lord Justice Mummery. “None of these things are good for neighbours.”

Mr and Mrs Pennock must now block up steps leading down from the wall they built.

“The effect this has on everyone’s conveyances is quite worrying, “saidMrs Pennock
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