A pensioner who lost her home after a long-running dispute with a neighbour over parking on a shared driveway has failed in a fresh High Court attempt to get the property back, in a case a judge said was a warning about the ruinous cost of neighbour litigation. (Radcliffe Chambers)
Marie Bernadette Potter, 75, had asked the High Court in London to rule that an order which led to the sale of her home in Shirley, Croydon, was invalid. She also sought more than £250,000 in compensation, arguing that her eviction, the removal of her belongings and the continued efforts to sell the house were unlawful. But Judge David Halpern KC ruled that the county court had acted within its powers and that the order for sale had been validly made. (Solicitors Journal)
The case, McGowan v Potter, arose out of a bitter dispute between Potter and her neighbour, Kirsten Elaine McGowan, over access along a shared driveway leading to McGowan’s garage. According to evidence summarised in court reporting and legal commentary, the two women had initially got on well after Potter moved to Bennett’s Avenue in 1998, but relations later deteriorated after complaints that Potter’s Ford Focus was being parked in a way that blocked access. (The Independent)
What began as a residential falling-out eventually became a costly legal battle. In August 2020, Bromley County Court ordered Potter to pay McGowan £30,452.95 in damages together with £27,000 in costs. Potter did not pay those sums, and a final charging order of £69,351.07 was later made against her property. The debt was then enforced through an order for sale, and in April 2023 a warrant of possession was executed, leading to Potter’s eviction from the house. (Solicitors Journal)
By the time the matter returned to court this month, Potter had been living in rented accommodation in Bromley for around three years, while her possessions remained in storage at her expense. Reporting of the hearing said the property itself had still not been sold and that its value had fallen sharply, with Potter claiming that deterioration and flood damage had reduced its worth by more than £100,000. (The Independent)
Potter represented herself in the latest proceedings, with help from a retired solicitor from her church. She argued that the county court order which set the sale process in motion had been made without jurisdiction. Her case turned on a legal point about the powers of county courts to enforce charging orders over property where mortgages or other charges exceeded £30,000. She contended that because the amount secured against her house went beyond that level, the county court judge had no power to make the order for sale in the first place. (Solicitors Journal)
That argument, if successful, would have gone far beyond the immediate issue of title to the house. Potter said the seizure of the property, her eviction and the attempt to sell the house were all unlawful if the original order had been made outside the court’s powers. She also alleged trespass and breaches of duty in relation to the taking of possession, claims that depended heavily on persuading the judge that the original order was void. (Solicitors Journal)
But Halpern rejected that interpretation of the law. In a judgment handed down on 16 March, he held that the county court’s relevant limit was not £30,000, but £350,000, reflecting the court’s equity jurisdiction under section 23 of the County Courts Act 1984. Legal commentary on the ruling said the judgment resolved an uncertainty that had remained after the County Court Jurisdiction Order 2014 raised the county court’s equity limit from £30,000 to £350,000. (Radcliffe Chambers)
The judge found that, although sections 90 and 91 of the Law of Property Act 1925 contain references to a £30,000 figure, those provisions deal with ancillary powers and do not impose the restrictive jurisdictional cap Potter had argued for. The proper question, he held, was whether the amount owed fell within the county court’s broader equitable jurisdiction. Since it did, the order for sale had been lawfully made. (Radcliffe Chambers)
In remarks quoted after the ruling, Halpern described the case as “yet another cautionary tale about the financial consequences of neighbour disputes for those without deep pockets.” He noted that the proceedings stemmed from earlier litigation over the shared driveway, and recorded that Potter had failed to pay “all or any” of the damages and costs ordered against her in 2020. “Needless to say, the amount due to Mrs McGowan continues to rise as interest accrues and more costs are incurred,” he said. (The Independent)
The judge concluded in clear terms: “The county court has jurisdiction to enforce a charging order by sale where the amount owing does not exceed the limit of its equity jurisdiction, which is £350,000. The order was therefore validly made.” Legal analysts said the decision gives important guidance on when county courts can make orders for sale to enforce charging orders, and means similar claims do not need to be issued in the High Court simply because the secured sum is above £30,000 but below £350,000. (Radcliffe Chambers)
The human dimension of the case has drawn attention because of the scale of the consequences when set against the original source of the dispute. Potter told the court in a witness statement that she had “managed to get along well enough” with McGowan for years before the row escalated. But once the dispute reached court, the financial consequences snowballed. What began as a parking and access disagreement turned into damages, legal costs, a charge against a house, possession proceedings, eviction, storage bills, rented accommodation and a second round of High Court litigation. (The Independent)
Reporting of the case has indicated that Potter’s home was valued at about £575,000 when the debt was charged against it, although another report from earlier in the litigation placed the figure closer to £530,000 at that stage. By the time of the latest hearing, Potter said the property’s value had fallen to around £425,000. Whatever the exact valuation point, the case has become an unusually stark example of how civil litigation over neighbouring land and access rights can spiral into the loss of a family home. (The Independent)
For McGowan, the ruling means the sale process can continue in an attempt to recover the debt she secured after winning the original claim. For Potter, it marks the collapse of her attempt to unwind the possession of the property through this legal route. The judgment leaves standing not only the original debt and order for sale, but also the broader principle that county courts can enforce charging orders by sale where the amount owed is within the modern £350,000 equity limit. (Radcliffe Chambers)
The case is likely to be remembered both for the legal point it settled and for the stark facts behind it: a dispute between neighbours on a shared driveway in suburban south London that ended with a pensioner out of her home and a High Court judge warning of the heavy price that can follow when ordinary domestic rows harden into years of litigation. (Radcliffe Chambers)
