Builders must pay €31,500 to couple over ‘uncivilised’ conduct

A building company has been ordered by the High Court to pay €31,500 to a couple over its "uncivilised" conduct towards them during a boundary dispute over a "sliver of land".

Sean and Pauline Abraham had also been subjected to trespass and intimidation by employees of Oakley Park Developments and its director Denis Power, Mr Justice Tony O'Connor said.

The case arose out of a dispute in 2013 between the Abrahams and Oakley over the boundary with the couple's home in Straffan, Co Kildare, which they bought in 2008.

The previous owner was the son of the owner of an adjoining 37 acres and, in an agreement between father and son in 1998, the son increased the area around the house which had been built there, Mr Justice O’Connor said.

Oakley had bought an adjoining two hectare field in 2000 for €1.5 million, part of which had been used as a football field.

Oakley planned to get permission to build houses, which it later did. There was also a fence between the Abraham home and the Oakley land which had been put up by the previous owner.

Called to home

By 2013, Oakley was building a bungalow at the rear of Abraham’s property and Mr Power called to the couple’s home to discuss the boundary.

Mr Justice O’Connor said, when a meeting took place, Mr Power had said he was left “feeling a bit foolish” on the visit, during which Mr Abraham said he had to rush off to work.

Mr Power’s “hurt pride and his own subjective perceptions of others throughout all of his encounters” with the Abrahams caused him to react, the judge said.

Mr Power took it upon himself to define the boundary, without further reference to the Abrahams, according to a map he had and without paying any heed to the lack of conclusiveness of such a map, the judge said.

At the end of August 2013, someone, on behalf of Oakley, painted a line on the Abrahams’ garden shed and took down the fence which had been there.

The Abrahams sued Oakley for trespass and harassment and a declaration they were owners of the disputed land. Oakley counter-claimed and denied the Abrahams were owners.

Agitated state

The judge said Ms Abraham was left in an agitated stated when she discovered two Oakley employees using crowbars and sledgehammers to take down the fence.

While it was alleged Ms Abraham struck a workman during the incident, the judge said he was satisfied he should pay no regard to whether this alleged hitting on the arm of “a well built and strong labourer” justified any action taken on the day or later by the defendant.

During Easter 2014, the Abrahams had a fence rebuilt on the original boundary line, but this was pulled up once discovered by Oakley employees.

Oakley also used a teleporter to put blocks along the fence line, which remained there for 15 months.

The judge was satisfied Oakley caused trespass and disrupted the Abrahams’ enjoyment of their home “by its dogged insistence and intimidating type of conduct” to assert its view of the boundary line.

Oakley’s perceived right of ownership to the “sliver of land” took no account of a corresponding duty to moderate its behaviour which a civilised society demands when asserting such a right, he said.

It was to the Abrahams’ credit they took a measured approach towards the case and had not claimed aggravated damages, he added.