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A pensioner involved in a five-year legal battle with her neighbour over a boundary dispute has been served with a High Court writ to seize her home.
Court bailiffs visited Jenny Field to deliver the notice that they will take possession of her £420,000 bungalow home next month – after she ignored a court-imposed deadline to settle a £113,000 legal bill with neighbour Pauline Clark.
Ms Field was told if she failed to pay by midday on December 5 she must vacate her £420,000 bungalow by 4pm that afternoon. But instead the pensioner remained holed up in her property in Poole, Dorset, where she vowed to 'sit tight' at the house she bought nine years ago.
Bailiffs are now set to evict the 77-year-old on January 26, when the locks will be changed on the cul-de-sac property. It will then be listed for sale.
The proceeds will be used to pay Mrs Clark's legal bill following the prolonged court case.
The two women fell out of a 1ft strip of land between their two bungalows.
The dispute was centred on the placement of a party fence put up by Mrs Clark in 2020. Grandmother Ms Field claimed her neighbour moved the fence 12ins onto her land when it was installed.
Jenny Field has vowed to 'sit tight' at her house, but bailiffs are now set to evict her
Pauline Clark, pictured leaving Bournemouth County Court in September, said she had been 'living a nightmare'
The boundary between Ms Field's bungalow on the left, and Mrs Clark's on the right has been at the centre of a five-year dispute
So she hired her own contractors two months later and had the 6ft fence taken down and repositioned to reclaim 'her land'.
The matter ended up in a protracted civil court case which Mrs Field lost earlier this year.
Mrs Field has launched a desperate last minute bid to have the eviction suspended.
She claims the eviction notice is invalid and alleges Mrs Clark had trespassed onto her land when building the fence.
A court hearing will take place in the new year to listen to her arguments.
Ms Field said: 'I am not moving. This is my home and I have paid for it. She (Ms Clark) has no right to my property.
'They want to evict me from my home but they can't do that, I have got human rights.
Pauline Field beside the boundary fence she put up fter her next-door neighbour erected her fence. She is refusing to leave the property
The bungalows overlook a green boasting mature trees in the quiet cul-de-sac
Read More Defiant pensioner REFUSES to leave her home after dispute with neighbour over 1ft strip of land
'I haven't done anything wrong. All I have done is taken her fence off my land and given it back to her and put up my fence on my own land.'
In September District Judge Ross Fentem ruled in favour of Mrs Clark, 64, over the matter.
He said Ms Field had 'no reasoned basis' for her claims and ordered her to pay Mrs Clark's legal fees of £113,266.
Ms Field was given a deadline of December 6 to pay but she failed to do so.
As a result Mrs Clark's solicitors went back to Bournemouth County Court to successfully apply for a notice of eviction.
Mrs Clark, a widow, said: 'This has been going on for six years in January.
'I've been living a nightmare.
'The judge gave her three months (to vacate) but it's a waste of three months. I'm worried they will never get her out.'
Mrs Clark said she has undergone private counselling to help her through the 'horrendous' situation with her neighbour.
Anna Curtis, Mrs Clark's solicitor, has previously said there was ample equity in Ms Field's property for her to pay the debt and still be able to buy a comfortable retirement property mortgage free and and have cash leftover.
In the legal papers served on Ms Field, it states that she will be allowed time to move her possessions out on January 26 after the bailiffs turn up.
She has been given advice about speaking to the local council's housing department to be rehomed and the Citizens Advice Bureau.
Ms Field, a divorcee, bought her three bedroom property in 2016. Mrs Clark bought the next-door property a year earlier.
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