Court resolves bitter feud between neighbours over boundary in rural Nelson

Maitai Valley, Nelson, inset Ana Dorrington. Photo / NZPA, Tim Cuff

A woman battling her neighbour over a controversial boundary between their rural properties says she’s relieved a decision has been made to resolve an ad hoc line separating the properties.

But Ana Dorrington is far from feeling triumphant about it.

Dorrington said it had been a painful, difficult and at times frightening situation since she bought the rural Nelson property in late 2019. While she is happy with today’s decision by the court, she told NZME there were no winners.

Dorrington had sought the court’s help in formalising the boundary, which had stood unregulated for 38 years, and to have her neighbours, Barry and Maggie McLeod, share the cost of doing that, estimated to be between $25,000 and $30,000.

In the Nelson District Court Judge Lawrence Hinton ordered in his reserved decision that a 25 square metre portion of land across the boundary, on which parts of Dorrington’s house encroached, be vested to her at a cost of $5000.

The Maitai Valley in Nelson, where Ana Dorrington bought her home in 2019. Photo / Tracy Neal

Hinton also ordered that the cost of readjusting the boundary is to be shared, with Dorrington paying the larger portion of two-thirds.

Dorrington discovered after moving in that parts of her house encroached on the McLeods’ property - an arrangement that had existed for decades and which the relevant property owners knew about at the time.

The first Dorrington learned of it was when she cut down trees on the boundary, thinking she was entitled to do so.

She had asked the McLeods to contribute to the costs, and it “all blew up” from there, resulting in the police being called to the location a couple of times, and finally, court action Dorrington claimed had cost her close to $100,000.

She told the court during a two-day hearing this week that Barry McLeod had strung wire over the top of her home, cut down a post holding up part of the verandah on her house and built a corrugated iron fence close by that banged in the wind. She said those actions had taken a toll on her emotional and physical health, including suffering two minor heart attacks when her house was “attacked”.

The cost to repair the damaged verandah post exceeded $3000. The court heard that McLeod was charged with willful damage but he denied that had occurred.

Another dispute arose when the McLeods started to build a new garage on the site adjacent to the boundary where the trees had been cleared.

It was a flat site suited to such a building which he assumed would not be able to go ahead if the boundary was adjusted.

McLeod, whose family had lived on the rural site for over a century, gave evidence of the importance of the land, how part of it was sacred because of where his late mother’s ashes had been spread, and how harmoniously he and his wife had lived with the previous owner, the late Nelson businesswoman and community leader Elspeth Kennedy, QSO, MBE.

The encroachment occurred after the former local authority, the Waimea County Council granted the original owner of the property a permit in February 1985 to add an office and sleepout, the result being that small sections of the house now owned by Dorrington spilt over onto the McLeods property.

At the time the McLeods were paid $500 for the small triangle of land.

Dorrington knew none of this when she bought the property in 2019 and claimed the agent hadn’t told her anything about issues with the boundary.

The McLeods had wanted to ensure any purchaser was made aware of the encroachment.

Dorrington agreed that they had made offers to settle the problem but none, including that she pay them $15,000 for the small parcel of land, had been acceptable to her.

The judge noted that the McLeod family had lived in the area for 110 years and that Barry McLeod viewed it as a taonga, particularly the mature native trees on site.

Their preference was for the boundary to remain where it was currently, but Dorrington’s lawyer, Julie Maslin-Caradus, said that was not a workable outcome.

“It is fair to say that the relationship between them has not been good,” Judge Hinton said of Dorrington and the McLeods in delivering his decision.

He hoped it was fair and acceptable to each party, after hearing their evidence and that of experts, including a surveyor and a valuer, that he considered pivotal to the outcome.

“There is no doubt there should be a boundary adjustment and both parties agreed,” Hinton said, noting that Dorrington had endured “rather more stress and discomfort than she should have”, and that McLeod had later appreciated the impact on her.

He said it was unacceptable that Dorrington should be required to remedy the encroachment because it was not her fault when the McLeods had known about it since 1985.

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.