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A gardening couple has won a legal battle over an eight-foot strip of lawn outside their \u00a31.3m Surrey home, a dispute sparked when new neighbours removed their plants and installed a garden gnome. <\/p>\n
Liz Dobson, an expert gardener, and her partner Andrew Pleming, both 60, had long tended the small parcel of land at the end of their Dorking driveway, mowing it and planting wildflowers.<\/p>\n
Their long-standing care was challenged when company CEO Alison Unsted, 47, and her husband Darren, 54, moved into the \u00a31m house next door. The Unsteds cleared the eight by three-foot strip of the couple’s plants, replacing them with a garden gnome.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
open image in gallery<\/p>\n
Andrew Pleming and partner Liz Dobson, who fought a tribunal case with neighbours Alison and Darren Unsted (Champion News)<\/p>\n
The dispute escalated to court, where Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming claimed adverse possession \u2013 “squatter’s rights” \u2013 based on years of use. <\/p>\n
Despite an initial tribunal loss, the couple secured victory. Judge Elizabeth Cooke, at the Upper Tribunal, upheld their appeal, confirming over a decade of continuous use and possession.<\/p>\n
Giving judgment, Judge Cooke said the couple had done everything they could over the years to show they possessed the land, mowing it, planting herbs and even at one point embedding a sign with their door number in the soil. <\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/DobsonPropertyHistoricAnnotated.jpeg\")
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open image in gallery<\/p>\n
The disputed land at the front of the home (Champion News)<\/p>\n
“People do not generally mow their neighbours’ grass without their agreement,” said the judge. <\/p>\n
“Nor do they let their children play on it. Nor do they replace topsoil on it or plant herbs in it,” she added, ruling that Mr and Mrs Unsted’s bid to “repossess” the strip with their gnome had failed. <\/p>\n
The Upper Tribunal, sitting in London, heard that the patch of garden lies at the end of the two sets of neighbours’ driveways, on Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming’s side, but was registered under the title of the Unsteds’ house. <\/p>\n
However, Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming said they had always used the triangular patch as if it was theirs from when they bought their next door house in Pointers Hill, Dorking, in 2009. <\/p>\n
They used it as a route from their upper to lower lawn, their children used it to get to and from a rope swing, while Mr Pleming and Ms Dobson, who the judge said was “very knowledgeable” about plants and soil types, mowed it, replaced topsoil and planting seeds. <\/p>\n
But the seeds of neighbourly conflict were sown soon after their new neighbours, Alison and Darren Unsted, moved into the \u00a31m three-bed detached home next door in August 2022. <\/p>\n
Nine months after moving in, the Unsteds set about asserting their rights over the tiny grass parcel when they \u201cre-took possession of the disputed land on May 9 2023 by removing the appellants\u2019 plants and installing a garden gnome\u201d, said Judge Cooke. <\/p>\n
Taking their neighbours initially to the First-tier Tribunal, Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming did not dispute that the strip was held under the title of their neighbours’ property. <\/p>\n
But they claimed it was theirs in line with the law of \u201cadverse possession\u201d since they and the previous owners of their home had used and enjoyed the strip for decades without protest from their neighbours. <\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/DobsonPropertyAnnotated.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
open image in gallery<\/p>\n
The disputed strip is just eight feet long (Champion News)<\/p>\n
Mr Pleming gave evidence that the couple had used the disputed land just like the rest of their garden and front drive, using it as a path for their mower and wheel barrow, putting their house number sign on it, and after 2010 adding plants such as sweet peas and lupine to richen the soil, and planting clover from 2012. <\/p>\n
The First-tier Tribunal judge found that the couple had established possession since 2018, but this wasn\u2019t long enough to qualify for permanent rights. <\/p>\n
He held that while the two keen gardeners had mowed and cultivated the patch, he wasn\u2019t convinced they had planted herbs such as clover in 2011 or 2013, which would have helped prove their permanent status. <\/p>\n
He ordered the land registrar to \u201ccancel the couple\u2019s application to be registered as proprietors of the small area of land\u201d, prompting them to launch their appeal to Judge Cooke in the Upper Tribunal. <\/p>\n
Allowing the appeal this week, Judge Cooke said the evidence showed Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming had in fact exhaustively cultivated the tiny patch since moving in. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe full picture is that, since the appellants bought the property, they have mowed, raked and scarified the lawn, and replaced topsoil and turf where necessary now and then, let their children play on the grass, used it to take the mower and barrow to the lower terrace, put a sign on it, and introduced herbs into the grass,” he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cLooking again at the nature of the land, I fail to see what more an occupying owner could have done.\u201d <\/p>\n
Supporting their case, a previous owner of the Unsteds’ home had told the court that she did not even know the patch of land was there.<\/p>\n
She had always treated everything on the other side of the drive as belonging to Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming. <\/p>\n
“Taken together, it seems to me perfectly obvious that Mrs Dobson and Mr Pleming were in possession of the disputed land, and that their acts of possession taken together demonstrated their intention to possess it. <\/p>\n
“I substitute the tribunal’s decision that the appellants have shown that they and their predecessors have been in adverse possession since at least 2002 until the respondents dispossessed them in 2023. <\/p>\n
“I will therefore direct the registrar to respond to their application for registration as if the respondents’ objection had not been made.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":{"0":"post-523127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-surrey","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-surrey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}