A retired beautician has lost her house after being forced to pay her neighbour’s legal bills in a bitter dispute over a £300 garden fence.
Muriel Middle, 79, who worked for Selfridges and Boots, expected that one day her £200,000 home would pass to her only daughter Sam.
But Sam, a firefighter, has been forced to step in and buy the two-bedroom property to save her mum from potential bankruptcy.
Widow Muriel lived happily at the mid-terrace house in Pontyclun, South Wales, for 20 years.
Then businessman Alexander Miles moved in next door and started making renovations. He built an extension in his back garden and removed part of a fence between the two properties so he could access a drainpipe.
The row started when Mrs Middle argued that the drainpipe was on her land and she brought in contractors to replace the missing fencing panels.
The fence feud became so bitter that police were called to calm the angry neighbours who almost came to blows over the garden fence.
Mr Miles, who owns a pillow factory, argued that the fence was his and the replacement panels didn’t match in colour or size.
The ownership dispute was heard at the Cardiff Civil Justice centre last summer where Mrs Middle and her daughter had no legal representation because they couldn’t afford it.
The case was partially upheld in Mr Miles’s favour and Mrs Middle was ordered to pay £15,000 of his legal costs.
That amount has now grown to £20,000 and Mrs Middle, a widow since the age of 39, has been taken back to court.
Her statement given to the hearing said: ‘How I find myself in court defending myself I do not understand. I have done nothing wrong and broken no laws.
‘I’ve not had the easiest life. My first daughter and my husband died and I was left to raise my remaining daughter on my own.
‘As devastating as that was, I can honestly say I have never encountered the stress this has put me under.’
It has made life more difficult for Mrs Middle living next door to the man who she says ‘ruined my life’.
Close to tears she said she would have never got through the ordeal without the support of her only daughter.
Sam, a firefighter with South Wales Fire and Rescue service, said: ‘This has absolutely crushed us. It has left my mother needing to sell her home after working hard all her life.
‘She is too old to remortgage so she had to sell the house to me to free funds to be able to pay this debt. None of this should ever have happened.’
The remortgage was completed last week and the mother and daughter are now planning to sell the property to get away from their neighbour.
Mrs Middle told Mail Online: ‘I don’t think I’m going to last much longer after going through this for the last couple of years. I just feel ill all the time.
‘I tried to get a loan and equity release, the only way to do it was to gift the property to my daughter so she could get a mortgage to pay the debt off.
‘I feel like I’ve had no justice whatsoever. It’s so far-fetched it’s hard to believe.
‘This man next door has made my life a living hell, the only thing I did was to replace a portion of the fence, 11 planks of wood, and he took out an injunction against me because it was the wrong colour.
‘If you replace wood panels you’re not going to get the same colour, the existing ones will always be faded.
‘I couldn’t afford legal representation and because I don’t know how to use a computer I feel as if I’ve been discriminated against.’
Mrs Middle said a judge described Mr Miles’s original legal fees of £45,000 as ‘extortionate’ and knocked them down to £15,000.
She added: ‘At my age I thought I’d be able to relax a bit. But this worry has been hanging over me and even taking the drastic step of Sam getting a mortgage on the property it hasn’t gone away.
‘I can’t afford anything at all, not even a cup of coffee if I go to the shops.’
Mr Miles declined to comment.