Two men receive compensation after woman builds a garage on their land

By Tara O’Connor, Local Democracy Reporter

Croydon council has been forced to pay out £1,250 to two men after planners gave the green light for a neighbour to build a garage on their land.

The two men, named only as Mr X and Mr Y, complained to the Local Government Ombudsman about Croydon council giving planning permission to a woman, known as Ms Z, to build on their land in January 2020.

The boundary dispute relates to a garage built by Ms Z which encroaches on land owned by both of the men.

The men went to the High Court in 2018, and the court found that the garage trespassed on land owned by Mr X and Mr Y.

The legal case went on for two years with a series of appeal hearings. It ended with Mr X returning to court to force Ms Z to remove steel posts as part of the garage which was granted in January 2020.

But a day after this was granted by the court, Croydon council approved a planning application for Ms Z to build a garage in the same location.

This led to a further back and forth between Ms Z and Mr X, leading to a complaint to the council from Mr X and a six-month wait for a response.

The ombudsman found that Croydon council did not scrutinise the application properly.

When the application arrived, the structure had already been partly built – pictures submitted showed a steel frame in place.

The report says that the council should have checked whether this structure would be removed and also asked for more evidence about whose land the garage would be built on.

Following the investigation, the council agreed to apologise to both men and pay out compensation of £750 to Mr X and £500 to Mr Y.

The report read: “The council has also agreed to try and learn lessons from this complaint. Within two months of a decision it will issue clear guidance for its staff on the approach it expects them to take when a certificate accompanying a planning application is challenged.

“This must involve a degree of scrutiny and decision making by the council and include keeping an audit trail of the same.

“The council should also ensure that it is has a process that considers the case for enforcement where it is presented with evidence which might lead it to think the certificate accompanying an application is knowingly false or misleading.”