Couple pay for suing seller of home next to ‘noisy’ bedsits
A COLLECTION of nearly 600 weapons recovered from the battlefield at Waterloo are for sale 205 years later for £100,000.
Both British and French swords and lances wielded at the decisive battle in June 1815 are going under the hammer.
They were used by Dutch soldiers who fought alongside the Duke of
Wellington’s army to defeat French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Many of the sabres were made by British swordsmiths. The Dutch also bore French-made weapons as they were ruled by Napoleon’s brother Louis
A COUPLE who say their lives were made a misery by noisy neighbours have received a fivefigure legal bill after losing a compensation fight against the pair who sold them their £615,000 house.
Matt and Hannah Graydon thought they had found the perfect home to bring up their family when they bought Mark and Lisa Crook’s elegant four-bed semi-detached villa in January 2015.
But they told a court that the day after moving in they found police cars outside the adjoining property – which had been converted into seven bedsits.
Mr Graydon, 52, claimed years of loud partying, drunken sessions and anti-social behaviour from the occupants had left them unable to sleep and their children had to stop playing in the garden because of constant bad language.
They were seeking £100,000 donated to a Dutch museum. Now the museum is selling the collection in a sale that is attracting worldwide interest.
Andrew Mattijssen, a specialist at Dutch auctioneers Venduehuis, said: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime sale.”
The timed online auction ends on Monday. damages, claiming the sellers had deliberately withheld information about the noise from next door in order to induce a sale.
After a two-day hearing at
Central London County Court, their case was thrown out by Judge Nigel Gerald, leaving them to pick up a bill for the case which is likely to run into five figures.
Kwabena Owusu, for the Crooks, argued that it was simply a case of one set of occupants having a different experience compared to the new owners.
He said that in 10 years in the property, in South Nutfield, Surrey, Mr and Mrs Crook had never had any reason to call the police because of disturbances from next door.
Mr Crook, 49, said he had grown up on a council estate and had to just get on with neighbourly noise, but insisted he only ever had “respect and understanding” from his neighbours.