Is this Britain’s longest neighbour row? Warring pensioners in bitter boundary fight over a quarter of an acre of land that raged for 30 years and cost £30,000 each (and the losing party could still appeal)

• Angela Coupe and Ian Revell refused to back down over land in Chesterfield 
• Are YOU in a dispute with your neighbour? Email [email protected] 

A bitter land dispute between two warring pensioners over a quarter of an acre of land has finally been settled after a row that has raged for 30 years and cost both tens of thousands of pounds, MailOnline can reveal.

Neighbours Angela Coupe, 70, and Ian Revell, 66, both refused to back down in a row over the patch of land in Chesterfield resulting in a pricey court battle with costs totalling nearly £60,000 between them. 

Ms Coupe claimed she first bought 1.5 acres of land from the Revell family in 1972 and had used it for her rescue animals. 

But Mr Revell argued she had taken more land than she was entitled to resulting in a three decade-long quarrel in which he was left not wanting to visit his father’s burial site near the area. 

The row ended up in a three-year-long court battle in which Ms Couple claimed Mr Revell and his late father had moved a fence she had erected.

But a judge at Southern Derby Magistrates’ Court ruled in favour of Mr Revell and said Ms Coupe had lied. 

She has now been ordered to pay the Revell family £2,000 following the ruling in January to add to her estimated £30,000 court bill. Meanwhile, Mr Revell says he has forked out about £20,000. 

Ms Coupe has refused to give up the fight as she contemplates launching an appeal, and has even offered to take a lie detector test to ‘clear’ her name.

She claims to have built a wooden post along a concrete boundary which she said had been there since the 1930s.

The retired social worker and former Marie Curie nurse said she was ‘horrified’ when she caught Mr Revell and his late father moving the posts in her field in the mid 1990s and approached them.

She had claimed that she was entitled to 1.5 acres, and that the Revell family sold a quarter of an acre in 1945, leaving them with 0.77 of an acre.

However, Mr Revell had refused to budge and hit back at her claims.

He claimed they are each entitled to one acre, meaning that Ms Coupe was encroaching by taking half an acre more than she is entitled to.

Following the verdict, Ms Coupe said she was ‘appalled’ while Mr Revell said it was only right as he claimed the plot had been in his family for years.

Ms Coupe had levelled the land she believed she owned and placed the good soil inside her boundary for further use. She has also now claimed Mr Revell trapped the top soil in when he moved the fence.

She uses the land for her animals, including four rescue pigs.

‘A quarter of an acre is a lot for rescue animals, it makes a difference to the animals. They have less land to graze in’, she said.

Meanwhile, Mr Revell would prefer to leave the land as woodland. His late parents are buried nearby, and he claims the dispute has stopped his family from grieving.

‘My mum used to go and visit my dad’s grave on a regular basis. Once this dispute started, my mum never visited it,’ he said.

The warring pensioners were in a court dispute for around three years over the matter, which ended in January 2024 when Ms Coupe lost the case and was made to pay the Revell family £2,000.

The total costs of the case are yet to be determined, but Mr Revell believes he has paid around £29,000 so far, while Ms Coupe believes the case has cost her £30,000.

Ms Coupe said she was now looking at ways to appeal, after claiming evidence she produced was not taken into account.

She added: ‘When I went up to them and asked them what they were doing, they said they’d measured the land and found we had some of their land.

‘The surveyor measured me out 1.5 acres,’ Ms Coupe said, explaining that the surveyor had put markers in what she believed were all the appropriate places.

The next morning, she discovered that all of the markers had been removed.

She said: ‘All the markers had been taken out by them and thrown on the land.

‘I had to pay another £350 for the markers to be put in again and I begged my neighbours to have a surveyor even though they told me I didn’t need a surveyor.’

Mr Revell, who lives in Glapwell, Chesterfield, claimed Ms Coupe was wrongfully trying to take a quarter of an acre away.

He added: ‘Her surveyor had measured an acre, when it was never an acre in the beginning.

‘She accused me of moving the fence – it’s a complete and utter lie.

‘It’s a piece of land that’s been in our family for years and years. It was my grandad who bought it years ago and he actually lived on the land.’

The dispute escalated to court, and although Ms Coupe lost she still maintains her innocence.

She added: ‘The judge said that I had never put a fence up even though it was in my evidence, and that I had lied, and he said that I did not make contact with the neighbours. It’s appalling.

‘I couldn’t eat for a week, I lost a stone for a week.

‘I’m appalled by the justice system in this country. I wrote a letter to the judge and I’ve just had an email to say they can’t pass it on.

‘I feel as though I have liar tattooed on my forehead,’ she said, saying that she would now like to take a lie detector test to ‘clear’ her name.

‘I did not have the funds to get support at the time hence why I am in this situation now. I should have got advice from Citizens Advice Centre.’

But the verdict was welcomed by Mr Revell, who added: ‘The judge has said, ‘no, you’re wrong’.

‘Four separate surveys have agreed that our fence was in the correct position more or less.

‘It’s been a terrible three or four years because my dad’s grave is there so we’ve not been able to grieve properly.

‘My mum used to go and visit the grave on a regular basis. Once this dispute started, my mum never visited it.

‘I rarely go there because I feel so frustrated because she’s taken a quarter of our land.

‘She was damaging our posts so I went with my brother in law to try and repair the bit that she was damaging.’

Mr Revell said that the total cost of court bills has come to over £20,000 for him and his family.

He added: ‘It’s just loads and loads of hassle, especially around the time when my parents have been passing away – it’s just been bad.’

Ms Coupe is now due to remove her fences, which are in a position the judge deemed incorrect.