A dancer who appeared with David Bowie in the movie Labyrinth has vowed to “fight like a tiger” in a row with her fashion designer neighbour over the boundary between their £1 million homes.
Susan Lee, 71, and her neighbours Vanessa and Andrew McVickers are at war over the brick wall that runs between their gardens in Peckham, south London.
The neighbours fell out after fashion designer Mrs McVickers, 56, and her 58-year-old husband, who is an executive in the fruit farming industry, revealed plans to build an extension to their three-bed home, which involved demolishing and rebuilding the wall that separates their 1930s homes in Kings Grove.
Mrs Lee - who under the name San Lee played a ballroom dancer in the cult 1986 musical fantasy movie - refused to consent to the wall being knocked down, but last year her neighbours obtained a Party Wall Award allowing them to go ahead.
She is now fighting at Mayors and City County Court to overturn the award on the basis that the wall is entirely on her land and so any Party Wall Award relating to it is invalid, because it is not a party wall at all.
As well as her appearance in Labyrinth, dancer and dance teacher Mrs Lee also had roles in The Bill in 1989, Inspector Morse in 1990 and in EastEnders as “Dr Lam” in 1996.
Her neighbour Mrs McVickers runs a clothing business selling organic cotton and bamboo sleep and loungewear, while her husband is in the fruit farming business, having worked as a senior executive in a company exporting Chilean berries.
Opening the case before Judge Nicholas Parfitt, Mrs Lee’s barrister Nicholas Isaac KC said the dispute arose because Mr and Mrs McVickers wanted to knock down the wall and build an extension and an outhouse in their garden.
According to local planning documents, the couple wanted to build a two-storey extension to their terraced house, as they thought the existing layout did not maximise the open-plan layout of their home.
To solve that, they secured planning permission for an open-plan kitchen and dining extension in a contemporary style, with a central courtyard, and requiring demolition and rebuilding of the boundary wall.
A Party Wall Award was made in May last year, permitting work on the wall, but Mrs Lee insists that it should not have been made, as the wall is hers and hers alone.
“By that point in time, she had made it clear on numerous occasions that she considered the garden wall separating the two properties to be hers, an assertion supported by the report...which had been supplied to the appointed party wall surveyors prior to making their award,” said her barrister.
Appealing against the award allowing the work, Mr Isaac told the judge that Mrs Lee continues to insist that she alone owns the wall and that the purpose of the works was to incorporate a newly built as part of her neighbours’ extension.
“The wall is effectively a continuous physical feature around her garden which she and her predecessors in title have been responsible for maintaining, both of which facts lead to the reasonable inference that the wall was erected on her land,” he said.
“This is consistent with the fact that on any reasonable basis of measurement, the majority of the wall stands on [her] side of a line forming a continuation of the centreline of the internal party wall.”
For the neighbours, barrister Andrew McKie criticised the way that Mrs Lee has fought the case, which he said had run up legal costs and caused them upset.
“She appears to have sought to fight this litigation at all costs to avoid these works,” he told the judge.
“She said she would ‘fight like a tiger’ to get her way.
“She has consistently tried to get opinions of new experts to support her views, where the opinions of earlier experts have conflicted with her own.
“The approach of Mrs Lee has turned what should be a straightforward party wall case into a time-consuming and complex piece of litigation.
“This attitude of Mrs Lee has led to significant costs being incurred by Mr and Mrs McVickers and has caused them considerable distress and delay to the award that was in their favour.”
He said the “starting point” of the case was the fact that Mr and Mrs McVickers have a Party Wall Award in their favour which says that the wall “is deemed to be a party fence wall.”
Mrs Lee’s “principle problem is the inaccuracy and unreliability” of the expert reports which she had relied on in bringing her appeal against the award to prevent the works, he said.
The case continues, but Judge Parfitt is expected to reserve his decision on the dispute until a later date.
