Kevin and Elizabeth Harrison-Ellis were forced to almost £150,000 in legal fees following a battle over their home in Oxfordshire – which was triggered by a small wooden bin store
A couple used their daughter’s university savings to fund an expensive legal battle with their neighbours after building a wooden bin store.
Kevin and Elizabeth Harrison-Ellis from Oxfordshire, bought their bungalow in 2020 and added a first floor to the Goring-on-Thames property. The couple living in the home behind them, Stuart and Anita Hunt, didn’t raise a complaint at the time, despite the development impacting their view of the stunning ‘Goring Gap’.
However, when they added a small, wooden bin store to their driveway in 2022, it led to the Hunts launching legal action that went all the way to the High Court.
They claimed that the extended property had become “unsightly” and resulted in the loss of “visual amenity” from the windows of their £2.3 million home. The Harrison-Ellises have now been ordered to pay £25,000 to the neighbours but have been allowed to keep the moderations to their property, following a High Court ruling.
In addition to the £25,000, their legal expenses have reached almost £150,000, Kevin revealed. The 47-year-old 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.”
Kevin and his wife have two children under the age of ten, and the money the couple spent on legal fees was earmarked to pay for their education. He said: “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.”
The head of sales for a renewable energy company continued: “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.”
The Harrison-Ellis family were made aware of historical building restrictions which dates back to when the two properties shared the same plot, according to court documents. They stated that they could not build anything other than a single-storey home on the land.
Kevin and Elizabeth tried to discuss their plans with the Hunts before buying the bungalow but found that their property was rented out, so they gave the estate agent a letter to pass onto the Hunts. It said that they were thinking of buying the property but wanted to add a storey. Court documents state that the Hunts received the letter but didn’t respond.
The Harrison-Ellises went ahead and bought the bungalow, named Hillside, in March 2020 for £740,000. They applied for, and were granted, planning permission for a first floor extension, a new porch, and a new roof above the garage. The building process was completed in December that year and no issues were raised.
Meanwhile, the Hunts, who paid £1 million for their home in the summer of 2019, had undertaken the process of demolishing their home and replacing it with a three-storey house. They were granted permission in May 2021 and the works are currently nearing completion, which would boost the house’s value to £2.3 million, the court documents said.
In January 2023, more than two years after the completion of the extension at Hillside, the Hunts claimed that the Harrison-Ellises had extended their home in breach of the restrictions. This came after they took issue with the family’s bin shed.
The Hunts said the conversion had changed the character of the area, diminished the value of their home, and caused a loss of privacy. However, the Harrison-Ellises said the Hunts’ objections came 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 argument that the Hunts had “appeared to have been perfectly happy about Hillside until January 2023” – when the bin shed was built.
The judgment said: “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 also added that it was unclear why the Hunts had waited “so long” to look into the restrictions, and that many issues could have been avoided had they responded to the initial letter from Kevin and Elizabeth.
Reflecting on the judgement, Kevin 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.