A retired teacher is embroiled in a bitter row with her neighbour who she claims ‘stole 1.1 metres of her garden’ and ripped up her decking around her hot tub.
Rose Smith, 60, had spent £12,500 transforming the end of her garden over five months by adding decking and a hot tub – just in time for her 60th birthday.
But the grandmother said she was devastated to find a metre of her garden had been aggressively claimed by her neighbour Sandeep Singh when she returned home from work.
She alleges he tore down her fence, ripped up the decking around her hot tub and erected his own fence in her garden.
Mrs Smith desperately called the police who said they were powerless to help with the ‘civil matter’, so now she has turned to the Land Registry for aid.
A professional boundary survey appears to show that Mrs Smith is in the right and her fence that she says Mr Singh tore down was in the correct place.
‘What began as my dream garden has turned into a living nightmare,’ said Mrs Smith, who lives in a three-bed terraced home in Hayes, west London.
‘I won’t stop until what’s mine is finally respected.
Rose Smith, 60, built new decking around her hot tub last year but then she claims her neighbour destroyed her fence and the deck, claiming they own the land
Neighbour Sandeep Singh claims that this area highlighted in red is actually his – the Land Registry disagrees, saying the land is Mrs Smith’s
Ms Smith’s hot tub and decking before her neighbour encroached on her land
‘I do have a little bit of sympathy for him because he honestly thinks it is his land, but just the way he has gone about it is vile – he just doesn’t stop.’
‘I just want to be able to relax in my garden with my family.’
This nightmare has been raging on for nearly two years now, all beginning with a letter from the Land Registry in April 2024.
It said her neighbour was trying to claim ownership of the land behind her garden by occupying it through adverse possession – also known as squatter’s rights.
Mrs Smith is the registered owner of the medium-sized patch of land but had never known as it was derelict, overgrown and untouched for years.
‘I didn’t even realise the land was mine,’ said Mrs Smith.
‘I have lived there 10 years! As soon as I found out, I wrote straight back disputing it.’
Mr Singh’s claim was dismissed by the land registry after months of waiting.
This is what the deck looks like now from the other side, following the dispute with Mr Singh
Mr Singh even used a JCB to dig up parts of her garden which he thinks is his, she said. This was also parked against the new fence he made, she claims
Mrs Smith took pictures when she found her fence had been torn down by her neighbour, she said
With this dismissal and confirmation that this unused bit of land was truly hers, Mrs Smith decided to transform the forgotten section of her garden.
She started by building a new fence, extending her garden by just over a metre and exactly to the boundary plan from the land registry.
From there, she installed the new deck surrounding the hot tub, working tirelessly from February to June last year.
By July, it was nearly complete, just in time for her 60th birthday party, celebrated in the new back garden with family.
But the peace was ruptured a month later in August 2025 when Mr Singh tried to claim the land again – this time to try to sell it by contacting her lawyer, she said.
On September 22, she returned from work to find part of her garden had been claimed.
‘Mr Singh had cut out a bit of our garden,’ she said.
‘I genuinely didn’t believe what was happening – who does that?
‘The neighbour had ripped out my fence. He sawed about a metre off my garden at a slope and taken five wooden planks from the hot tub surround.
‘He left all my hard work ruined; I couldn’t believe that someone could do such a thing to someone’s property.’
To make sure she couldn’t take back her land, he chopped a metre off her decking and back fence and replaced it with his own fence, then parked two cards and a JCB dumper truck right up against it, she claimed.
A teenage relative of Mr Singh’s was guarding the boundary, she said.
When confronted, the teenager told Mrs Smith he’d done it because ‘it’s my land’ and claimed it was his ‘legal right’, waving a different boundary plan that contradicted Mrs Smith’s official title.
She reported the damage to the police but said they dismissed her because she was told it was a ‘civil matter’ despite the £2,000 of damage she claims to have been done.
Two days after the reported claim, Mrs Smith’s daughter and a friend removed the fence the neighbour had built.
But Mr Singh retaliated by building yet another fence on December 1, this time encroaching even further onto Mrs Smith’s land, she said.
Rubbish is being thrown into her garden by the neighbours, Mrs Smith has claimed
This is another piece of fly tipped rubbish Mrs Smith claims was dumped in her garden by neighbours
Mrs Smith is now working with the Land Registry to see what she can do in the bitter dispute
To make sure her claim to the land was right in the face of the neighbour’s counter boundary plan, a professional boundary survey was undertaken and confirmed Mrs Smith’s title plan was correct – the entire new fence is on her land.
Now Mrs Smith is working with the Land Registry to work out what to do next.
‘I just wanted a garden where my grandchildren could play safely – instead, it’s been stress, damage and months of worry,’ she said.
Mr Singh did not respond to a request for comment.
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